


Cradle of the Moon

by Fayghost



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Eggs, Everybody Lives, F/F, Happy Ending, Illustrations, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Multi, Non-Canon Gender, Other, Oviposition (off-screen), Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Scourge Sisters, Self-Harm, Xeno
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-16 03:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 118,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1329514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fayghost/pseuds/Fayghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The game gave them a world, and it was beautiful, and vast, and green, and sprawling. The water was clear and cold and the weather was fair, and the sun was gentle. There weren't eviscerbeasts or empires, or evil dogs of aggressive sapience, or temperamental bean mascots, or any other horrible thing. There wasn't anything else, either. Karkat guesses that would be up to them, and he's right.</p><p>One night, Kanaya approaches him with the problem of populate equilibrium. An unexpected solution arises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Vampire Habits

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Edoro and May for proofreading, talking, and showing interest.
> 
> Tags, pairings & characters will be appended as the work grows.

There are three fields out in the valley, a short walk from the river. They each stretch out for long enough to tire someone if they walk the perimeter, though not everyone walks anymore. One of the plots has cabbage-- and Karkat is tempted to put down in his notes, just for the record, that he absolutely fucking _detests_ cabbage, but it grows fast and it fills bellies and it puts something in the stew. Potatoes are better, he thinks, and they occupy the second. The first crop should come in soon, within the next twenty days, and he's counting every one.

The third is the largest, and isn't cleared just yet. Karkat thinks it'll be the rest of the week, at most, with all five of them out there. Aradia cleared all the largest rocks and boulders easily the first day, but the rest had to be done by hand. The plan is to grow wheat, and lots of it; flour can keep through the winter, and everybody seems excited about the idea of bread. Enough that they ignored it was a bit of a long-shot to attempt on their first year, anyway.

He tells himself he still has Jade and Nepeta hunting in the woods and the fish from the river, if anything happens. And the earth cows, if Tavros would even let them be eaten. He imagines the conversation, and decides it would be horrible.

But if it was anybody's job to do, then as Mayor of their settlement, (currently unnamed, though his favorite current shorthand is “putrid nookstain of tense alliances and generalized malcontent nestled between a freezing river and a forest of howlfiends”) then the task would be his.

The game gave them a world, and it was beautiful, and vast, and green, and sprawling. The water was clear and cold and the weather was fair, and the sun was gentle. There weren't eviscerbeasts or empires, or evil dogs of aggressive sapience, or temperamental bean mascots, or any other horrible thing. There was, however, nothing else, either. He guessed that would be up to them, and short of what supplies were brought in through pockets (Rose in particular had the foresight to sylladex nearly an entire library, bless them forever) he was right.

It had been nearly three months since that day, the tail end of a mild and forgiving winter. Things weren't bad. There were houses built, and generally there was enough food. People were optimistic. Of course that was crushingly, stupidly naive, and fuck if he really knew what he was doing; he might be leading them all into starvation and eventual mutiny, and it's a familiar kind of despair to have hanging out somewhere in the future like a ghastbeast stalking the highways. But it didn't feel that way; not now. He was almost happy about it, himself.

Kanaya makes herself known as vampires do; suddenly, and without invitation. One moment, he's pouring over the book-keeping, and in the next she's there across from him with arms folded and lips pursed to a scowl. He jumps not _exactly_ a foot.

“Kanaya--” He checks the door. It's closed. He hadn't even heard her open it. “What's wrong with _knocking_? Did we regress to barbarism already, really.”

“We have to talk about something.” She unfolds her arms, links her fingers together on the wood of the table. In the dim light of Karkat's cabin, her glow is obvious. “It's delicate. I didn't want to alarm the others until I had a chance to speak to you alone about it first.”

He settles, and closes his book. “Alright. Shoot.”

“The mother grub is germinating in her matriorb in the caverns, as you know, and the drone eggs we stole from her condescension matured within the catacombs to care for her. They're preparing her brooding nest.”

“That's what you were going for, right? So, mission success.”

“Yes.” She hesitates, and he tries not to stare as her hands wring gently-- if he looks only at her face, she seems completely reserved. “But there's a problem.”

“Hell. Is it serious? I guess you're going to tell me. And you're also going to tell me what that is, not leave me here to shamelessly grope around my own cranial husk leavings for the answer, right.”

“I said it was delicate. Karkat, the mother grub will take eight _entire_ sweeps to reach reproductive maturity.”

“What?” That number seems high, sure, but even as he turns it around in his head he can't see the connection to a state of emergency. “Okay, and?”

“That's the better half of some of the lower caste's lifespans, assuming we don't all starve to death in the next winter.”

He had really, really been hoping he was alone in worrying about that.

“My point is,” she says, withdrawing her hands. “Eight sweeps, then eight more as the grubs mature into adults. That's a violent generation gap, and not reproductively sustainable. We have twelve healthy trolls, twelve healthy trolls _now_ , and as meager as that is I'd like to act before the gene pool narrows any further. Particularly the lower castes, who are an invaluable genetic staple.”

“Wait, you're talking--” He sits back, as if distancing himself from the idea symbolically. “Okay. So. You want-- pails? Pailing. Now, and you'll like, put it in stasis or something, until the mother grub is ready. Okay. That's not the end of the world. We can bring it up at town hall.”

“Karkat.”

“Sure, I can see them squirming already, and Dave will probably make a smartass comment. But there's no rush, right? It's whenever. And it's not like we even need to make pairs nowadays, is it. You can do that, uh, given the ingredients, can't you? What am I saying, I don't know anything about how it works.”

“Karkat.”

“What?”

“That wouldn't work.” She stares him down the table in a way that makes him nervous, though it could be the slitted pupil of her eyes. “Genetic material is viable for fertilization within a period of 24 hours at most. Since it's not alive-- not an organism, anyway-- it can't go into stasis like the drone eggs did. It's the same reason the fleet never contributed, and the burden remained on the new conscription before they left the planet. And besides, it hardly fixes the problem of the population aging in the meantime.”

“You're going to need to give me a hint, Kanaya.”

“Wigglers, Karkat. We need wigglers. Troll eggs.”

Somehow, he didn't expect that.

“Well why don't I just pull some out of my sylladex here? No problem. What, are you getting hungry for a freshly leavened grubloaf or something?”

“No.” The way she frowns surprises him. She was never sensitive about that before. “There's a way. It's unsavory, a little. But I wanted to present you with the option and get your opinion.”

“You are making me just, incredibly nervous here. Alright? I have to say that.”

“Our situation is highly unusual and on Alternia would be recognized as biological emergency. The drones are reacting accordingly. There's no ovating mother grub, and no trolls, and that usually means the death of the hive short of immediate and drastic action. So they're under a very unique set of pressures. We're lucky they're so preoccupied with her they aren't leaving, because if they did, we'd probably fall to their agitation.”

“Agitation?”

“It doesn't work like that, thankfully. They feed themselves and care for the egg. They don't seek out trolls beyond the hive walls.”

“Okay. Here's the gross part, I can tell. Tell me the gross part, Kanaya. Why would they seek out trolls.”

She doesn't answer, immediately. She stares him down, and Karkat looks between his books, and her, and the rain as it beats against the window. Windows had been a hell of a thing, when they made them. He remembers Aradia and Equius pouring the glass, and how everyone had watched the first one cool, heat radiating in waves into the stuffy air of the workshop.

Her cloak is wet, the fur lining of her hood sticking out in damp spikes. “Did you really walk here for this, in that weather? You're not usually out at night.”

“Oviposition.”

He blinks. She continues.

“In a population emergency, with no mother grub, the hive goes into a state of near dormancy. Reproduction falls onto the shoulders of a few ovipositing drones, who copulate with incubators between cycles of topor to maintain populate equilibrium. They're laying, right now. Drone eggs-- not many, just enough to replace the current population as it ages and dies.”

“Wow. Okay.”

“The immature eggs-- that is, immediately before and after oviposition-- are identical to what a mother grub would produce in ovum, and with fertilization, they would become grubs.”

“Gross, alright, tell me the rest and get this over with. Please. Unless you want my dinner all over this table, and the floor, and possibly your hair? Just imagine a volcano of perpetual revulsion at the idea of all this gross, questionably sapient bugsex that's happening, and that's a vision of your immediate future if you don't get to the point.”

She says the next thing fast enough that he thinks maybe she took him too seriously. “I've been thinking it over, and this is how it is. What we need is a troll to provide incubation to fertilized drone eggs in order to stave off the inevitable destruction of our budding society, or face the reality of an economic death by population comprised of retired lowbloods, and humans, might I add, without manpower to provide for their care or their material needs or replace them.”

“You're entirely serious about all of those things you just said.” He says it not intending to be incredulous, but the way she gives a curt nod sort of confirms it, and he thinks it over, and questions it, but she's right. All this time he was worried about the next hundred days-- the next hundred weeks, maybe. But eight sweeps? Would he even be alive in eight sweeps? What happens when people start getting too old to work, start _dying_?

There's a weird sort of feeling that chills through his shoulders.

“Who is it going to be, then?”

Kanaya makes a face like that's a weird question to ask, but he decides absolutely it isn't. “Okay, nevermind, I get it. Too soon. I'll bring it up in town, then? I'll put it delicately. This sort of thing has to be on a volunteer only basis, uh-- okay, fuck, I'm really doing this? I'm really going along with this. Wow. You know what, no. I've decided I'm _not_ going to immediately jump treadnubs first into a mawthresher's wastechute here. Eggs? Like- _in_ you? Where, exactly-”

“I-”

“No, nevermind, I definitely do _not_ want to know.”

She makes her first real expression of the evening, giving a meager shrug and a tense, side-eyed smile. Karkat is glad somebody is amused about all this. “I consulted Rose, if it helps.”

Rose. That settles him down, considerably. “What did they say?”

“That it was a good idea.” Her tone implies something, but Karkat can't tell what. “But also, that I should ask you. And that we should do whatever it was you wanted to do.”

He thinks it over. He takes his time, thinking it over, and Kanaya waits while they both sit in the warmth of the hive, under the sound of the rain and the crackling embers in the broiler that sits in the corner by the kitchen's wood stove.

“They can handle it. Hearing about this, I mean. They're going to bicker, because it's uncomfortable, but we'll all deal with it. And it's going to be volunteer _only_. This isn't rock breaking duty, we're not pulling straws on it. Holy shit. Kanaya, do you really know what you're getting into, with this?”

“I have a pretty good idea what it'll be like.” She sees he isn't satisfied with the answer almost immediately. “I'm prepared. Whoever it is, I'll be attending to them. I request that become my second accountability in the event we. Um. Actually do this, you know.”

“Granted. In the event we actually do this.” And just to manage her expectations, he continues. “Which, uh, Kanaya? I have to warn you, probably we won't. This is weird. Really weird, I'm not even sure I can totally get behind it, you know? I can't guess anybody would go for it.”

“Apparently this used to happen all the time, in the history of our species before modern convention.”

“That's great, but we've got a bunch of modern trolls out there. You better have one hell of a vertical displacement block pitch sorted out.”

She shrugs, which isn't very reassuring. “For the commonwealth?”

He can already hear somebody quoting Troll George Orwell in his head, and that's the start of a conversation Karkat decides he really doesn't want to have. Again.

The two of them agree to bring it up, gently, at the end of the next meeting. And then Kanaya leaves him, alone, in the quiet of the empty hive and the young dark of the cooling spring night, where he can lean back in his chair with his hands folded over his stomach and privately bemoan the unending lamentations of his existence.

At this point, it's familiar and comforting.

 

***

 

“And as long as the windmill is done in nine months, which I mean-- that shouldn't be completely impossible, with two psionics and our collective half-competence-- we're set. It'll be just like earth human Christmas. We'll even murder and desecrate the corpse of an innocent pinefur column if it appeases the horrifyingly bloated alien deity of hedonism.”

 “Hey Karkat, I want to raise a motion about how offensive that is.”

“I want to raise a motion too! It's the “Shut Up Dave” motion. Nobody else in favor has to say anything because I already passed it. Shut up, Dave.”

Dave actually does shut up, because he's interrupted. The door opens; and nearly an hour late, somebody lets themselves into the storage barn (currently also the town hall,) pulls down their sopping hood, and sits alone in the seat farthest from the podium. The entire room turns to stare, briefly, even though they all know who it is-- so Karkat doesn't feel too bad about watching for as long as it takes the others to turn their attention back to the front, and dull their sounds of derision.

Gamzee comes in late, every night, without fail, though this time Karkat suspects it must have been the rain. He lives very far away, in a small house he attempted to build himself before Aradia finally helped him. He walks every morning to the fields to work, always late, and always leaves a little early, and barely speaks to anyone.

He sits now, in the back, hands clasped together over his knees, body bent as to avoid looking anyone in the eye. His hair is wet. It's as if the rain soaked through the hood, and the damp hang of his clothes over his shoulders confirms it.

Its like a shadow falls over the crowd, and deep in his beatpump even Karkat feels a sort of generalized reluctance. He lets his gaze linger, for a bit, but that's all.

“Any questions?”

Terezi raises her cane. “Is anybody's accountability changing?”

“No.” Karkat shakes his head-- but then stops. That's sort of a lie, if Kanaya gets her way, isn't it? He decides not to mention it now. “Hopefully we'll be able to stop changing it around for a while. We found a pretty good equilibrium, I think. Everybody's pulling their weight.”

“Not _everybody,_ ” Vriska says in a way that implies something painfully obvious.

“Thank you, Vriska, for that incredibly beneficial contribution. Tell Equius to put in on a plaque, I want it up in the hall with the rest of the dumb shit that gets said around here.”

Vriska points a thumb to the back of the house. “Or under a statue of fuck-for-sponge here getting his lights punched out, maybe.” She leans over the bench where Terezi sits and offers a hand for a high-five; Terezi takes a whiff of the air and turns around at her, critically. With a groan, Vriska sits back.

“ _Thanks_ , Vriska.” Karkat hopes his tone will be enough. “Anybody else?”

Beyond the idle murmurings, nobody else seems to have much to say. Kanaya stands, and dusts off her skirt pointedly before making her way to the front. _Here we go_ , he thinks, and pulls away from the stand where she takes his place.

“Okay, so, uh, Kanaya has an announcement for all of you, and some... it's important, okay, so if you've been completely tuned out this entire time, wake up, chucklefucks. I need all ears. That means you, gestational groundspores in the front row.”

Dave and John stop whispering.

And Kanaya talks about the drones.

Faces go pale pretty quick, even on the humans, who seem thankful enough that they are exempt from volunteering by anatomical default. More than once, Kanaya is asked for clarification. The important details are out, being the gist of the conversation she had brought to him the night before, but already there's a sort of tension that floats over the tips of their horns.

“Does it, uh,” Tavros begins, in something Karkat knows is not a positive sort of curiosity. “Does it hurt? I mean not like I am suggesting myself, I'm just asking to know. If that is a thing that it would be as an experience, I mean, for whoever did it.”

“Probably.” Kanaya says, nothing else if not to the point.

“I suggest one of the lower castes perform, as they are better suited to such vulgar displays.”

The room groans. Equius lowers the hand he had raised.

“Is it dangerous?” Feferi stands, when she speaks, and Karkat tenses. Once people stand up, it's done for. There's a meeting down the fucking load gaper, and he knows the minutes here are already numbered. “If it's dangerous, then if anything, one of the highbloods should do it! They're tough enough to handle it!”

“Are you suggesting yourself?” Kanaya's tone is a little icy; Karkat knows beggars can't be choosers, here, but he also can tell Kanaya probably has a few people she wouldn't pick if she could, and the list probably includes anyone that feels compelled by hemoist motivation. Feferi sits down. No offense to her, but Karkat agrees.

“Feferi's contributions to the food stores via the fishery are way too important anyway. We can't afford to compromise that.”

“Then I better not evven hear _one_ of you dirt-stompin' troglodytes suggest I aughtta prostrate myself to Kan's freaky science project.”

Sollux has none of it. “Oh fuck off, dude, nobody was going to say that.”

“Yeah, cause I nipped that shit in the bud real fuckin' quick.”

Equius raises his hand again. “As the heiress suggested, a highblood is best suited, so I-”

“No.” Kanaya says. “You're likely to crush them if you so much as sneezed. Sorry.”

“Ah.” His hand lowers, and he looks relieved. The sheen of sweat on his brow seems notches below what it could have been. “Alright. Yes. That makes sense.”

“It's not a debate, anyway.” Karkat stands beside her, in solidarity, but also because her tall posture and her calm are reassuring. “This is a volunteer only position, okay? Meaning you only do it if you really want to. I mean really, really want to, for the good of everybody, not any kind of bullshit justifications or finger pointing. It's weird, it's gross, _yes_ it's dangerous because we don't know what the fuck we're doing, and it's not something I want anybody going into with half their gluteal-orbs.”

“Humans go through something like this.” Rose offers, finally. “We do alright. I can contribute our knowledge to the care of the afflicted party, if it helps.”

Kanaya seems reassured. “I'd really appreciate it.”

Karkat nods to agree. He's thankful for the gesture, because to be honest, there's not much he'd do about anything without the go-ahead from Rose about it being a good idea.

Things go a little quiet. After that, it's a hard for anyone else to start making nominations. He scans the hesitant faces, watching them think it over. Terezi, in particular, has an expression flat as iron. It almost seems like she's about to say something, though he doubts she's going to offer herself, and in the entirety of the pause she doesn't speak.

There's finally a noise-- barely a shuffle, really, and when he looks back up Gamzee is looking back over the heads of the congregation. Face turned to the light, he looks spectral and hollowed. Almost like something you'd pull up out of a swamp. Everybody else notices, follows where Karkat's gaze is, and turns to look. He shrinks slightly from the attention.

“Such things you said, I mean--” And it's the first time he's spoken in this house, in two months, in every night he's joined them, and his voice crackles like old paper. “I could be to do them. Put all things what are most wickedly ovationed up into this husk, I ain't being to care.”

“ _No._ ” Terezi doesn't even move to dispute it, but Karkat sees her knuckles going bright around where she grips her cane.

“Ninja spit his verbiage most wicked so as to imply how any motherfucker who was really wanting could do it.” Gamzee doesn't look up, when he says that. His voice is low, and entirely toothless. A heavy silence comes next.

Karkat worries if he speaks he'll set something off-- something that's had a fuse on it for a very long time. He reaches into his mind and tries to scoop up words, and only comes up with punctuation. Commas, mostly.

“And do you?” Kanaya asks, a figurative and literal beacon from how she glows.

Gamzee looks at her in a way that suggests he doesn't _want_ to look at her, and nods. Everyone else begins to shift in their chairs and wait for the moment to be over, and visibly grow more uncomfortable the longer it isn't. The implications go on forever, and everybody seems to know what they are, and Karkat thinks if he doesn't do something, a terrible thing is going to be said.

She sighs, and on the podium he can see a set of her claws dug into the wood. She's eying Gamzee, up and down, in a way that makes Karkat glad he's not the target of it. “Well. Alright then. Unfortunately, I can't think of a reason to refuse.”

That's all he needs to hear to derail this shitwagon before it explodes. “Okay, then we're done. Everybody else out.”

Vriska folds her arms. “Can't we _discuss_ this?”

“No. It's not your job, it's Kanaya's. Whatever she says about the caverns goes. That's how things work around here.” There's somewhat of a collective groan of reluctance, though it's subtle, and people don't seem to need a reminder about his policies. The ones in the back start to get up-- Gamzee stands out of his chair and moves from the door to give them breathing room as they leave, and eventually, the building empties.

When Terezi goes, she speaks to no one. Karkat feels something sort of sour in his gut, but doesn't know what to do. She's not the last one through the door, but only because Rose and Jade wait until she passes, and then follow her outside. That leaves nothing else in the storage hive but the three remaining trolls, and the fish, meat and cabbage in their one refrigerated thermal block-- one of the only parts of the town with any electrical power.

Gamzee comes up to stand in the aisle of the empty building and seems to wilt under their gaze, though his expression doesn't betray anything at all. Karkat looks between them, and waits, leaning against the side of one of the benches and burying his grasping prongs deep into his pockets.

“Do you have any questions?” She asks him.

He shrugs, and still refuses to look at either of them. “Just tell at a motherfucker what you think they're being to need known.”

“Alright.” That seems to go over well, and Karkat restrains a sigh of relief. “Meet me at noon, tomorrow, by the road to the hills. You won't need to bring anything. And _absolutely_ don't be late.”

“I'll make sure he gets there,” Karkat says, surprising all three of them. “I mean, that's right after first crepuscular. We'll both be in the fields. I might as well just bring him to you.”

“I can do it on my motherfucking self, brother.”

“I want to be there anyway. This is important, right? I should know what happens.” He unpockets his hands and folds his arms, looking between them again. Kanaya doesn't seem as angry as she once did. There's something about Gamzee's expression that worries him, but not in the way that he used to. “I mean, you're the boss here, Kanaya, but it might be a two man job if something goes wrong.”

“Maybe. Yeah. Alright, so I have no idea.” She looks to Gamzee. “I'm not even going to ask why you're doing this. I don't care. But you should know that while I've made as many preparations as possible, it's not exactly a venture of guaranteed security.”

He shrugs again.

“And Karkat.” He looks up at her, away from the floor he'd been considering previously “Thanks. Um-- you know what for.”

“Thank _you_ for having the worst job on the entire planet, easily. And for solving problems before they're even, you know. Problems. I don't know what any of us would do without you. Seriously.”

“Nothing would happen at all if we allowed ourselves to bicker. You do alright.” And Karkat smiles wide, when he hears that, enough he has to look away.

They agree to meet tomorrow. The three of them put back on their cloaks, step out the door into the rain, and start heading home. He and Kanaya go the same way, but Gamzee leaves in the opposite direction, and for a while Karkat stays by the building to watch him go. His cloak isn't even on-- instead, the clown has it draped over one wiry forearm, pinned to his side. The rain hammers down on his shoulders, and doesn't even seem to bother him.

Karkat doesn't really understand.

He catches up to Kanaya, tugging his hood tighter over his small horns, and looks up at her. She's taller, significantly, so much that it's almost impossible to look her in the eye and shield his face from the rain. “Are you really sure about this? About him, I mean. You can say no.”

“If I wasn't sure I wouldn't have gone for it. It'll be alright, Karkat. Just be there tomorrow.”

“Okay. Sure. Goodnight, Kanaya.”

“Goodnight, Karkat.”

They split ways a little further down the road, and that's that. Karkat goes home, makes himself dinner (meat, fish, and _fucking cabbage_ ) and sleeps a long, tired sleep.

 

 

 


	2. Attic Dog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is chapter number two. The second chapter. There are now twice as many as there were when I started! That, my friends, is called progress.
> 
> Also, thank you very much for your comments and interest! Readership is the life of prose, as they say, and you are the life of mine. I hope you enjoy the following.

When he's working the fields the next morning, Sollux asks him a question. “So what do _you_ think about it?”

“Think about _what_?” He doesn't even look up from the furrows he's digging. Karkat imagines there is very little he wouldn't do to avoid this conversation, short of bodily dismemberment, but it's not like there's anything people have to do nowadays but gossip.

Sollux has an answer. “About _it_ , kk, holy shit. Listen, all that stuff you and Kanaya said? Super reasonable. I totally get it. But also, what the _honest fuck_ , you know?”

“Okay, Sollux. This conversation? Not happening. Not in a million years. They're doing it, end of story.” There's a rock under the dirt the next time he digs into the ground, and he stops to pick it up and cock his arm back to toss it out of the field. They're still not far enough in that he'll have to start pocketing them.

“Why do you think Gamzee did it?”

Karkat lets the rock go. It flies almost all the way out, but not quite, and kicks up a cloud of dust when it falls. “Fuck if I know. Does it really matter?”

“ _Couldn't_ it matter?”

“What's he going to do? Raise them to be evil?” Karkat actually shoots him a look, before he goes back to digging, and makes sure to check that Gamzee is still planting at the other end of the field. That's farther than earshot, he thinks, and besides, Jane currently has his attention. Something about the seeds-- knowing Gamzee, he was probably doing it wrong.

When he looks away, he grimaces a little.

“I'm just saying.”

“You're not saying _anything_ because we're _not_ talking about it.”

Sollux shrugs, and the two of them go back to working in silence.

For a while, anyway.

The only sound is the jab of the hoes against the dirt, and before long Karkat's motions have an emphasis that is entirely unnecessary. Sollux does his best not to react, but it's too late. The storm of Vantas is already brewing, and he knows better than to expect anything different than what happens next.

Karkat finally snaps. “Okay! So, what would you have had me do, huh? Am I supposed to just kick him out? Cull him? Is _that_ it?”

“I don't know, kk, you said we weren't talking about it.”

Karkat shoves the pole of the hoe away from him and lets the whole thing fall to the ground in a heap, kicking dirt as he storms off into angered pacing. Sollux waits for the tantrum to set in, leaning comfortably against where his rake digs into the earth with as little as a raised eyebrow to say about it.

“I can't please everyone! It's impossible. Half the time I don't know what I'm supposed to do. _Especially_ about him.”

“Keep your voice down, asshole, he's gonna hear you.”

“You're the one that asked me!” He picks up the hoe again-- jabbing it symbolically once in Sollux's direction before letting the end rest back in the dirt. “And you know what I think? I think I have no idea what to fucking think, because it's bullshit, and it's complicated, okay? I'm doing the best I can, here, I don't need your patronizing.”

“For fuck's sake, would you chill out? I was trying to talk to you, you know?” Sollux goes back to hoeing, and Karkat grudgingly resumes. “Are you really that stressed out about it?”

“You weren't there, at the end.” There's still an edge to his voice, but it fades before he speaks again. “A lot of things happened. It's a fucking mess.”

Sollux doesn't say anything to that. The two of them work until the end of the field, and the end of the first crepuscular work session, and after that, Karkat goes to find Gamzee to take him to the road to the hills.

He's waiting, there, at the corner of the planted furrows, patting down some of the buried wheat with the palm of his hand. Karkat watches him for a bit, as he takes small pinches of the dirt between his fingers and rubs it into the pads, and eventually around the inside of a curled fist. He doesn't even notice the troll standing a meter away from him.

“Hey,” Karkat says, finally. “It's time to go.”

Nothing changes, for a moment, and Karkat wonders if he was even heard. But eventually Gamzee stands, and without looking, picks up his cloak to hang about his shoulders. Karkat doesn't know why; it's a warm enough day to go without.

He hangs there for a while, like something caught on a dead tree, before he answers.

“Alright, brother. I'm ready.”

 

*******

 

Kanaya meets them at the edge of the town, and together they walk to the caverns.

The caverns are dug into a hillside that takes a few hours to walk to, and about halfway there Karkat realizes that unless they make it quick, it's unlikely he's going to be back in time to finish the planting at second crepuscular. He'll have to find some way to make it up to them, or he's never going to hear the end of it.

When the three of them near the entrance, Karkat's first impression is how it buzzes. Nobody but Kanaya has been up here, at her request, since they cleared the first chamber and unfroze the drone eggs from their biological stasis. But in there, they're very much alive now, and he can hear the thrumming of their wings and respiration bellows. Just inside the cave there's upwards of fifty of them, Kanaya has told him, digging deep into the earth to make Her brooding caverns.

He's a little nervous about being this close, and Kanaya notices.

“They don't come outside but to hunt, and when they do that, you're none of their concern.” She looks between her companions. “But it's best you don't come any closer.”

“Right.” He says. “So...”

“Just wait here. It'll be a minute.”

Before they head into the cave, Gamzee turns back to give him a look. But that's all. After that, they both disappear in to the dark, and even after Kanaya turns on her glow all he can see is the reflection off the ceiling as the two of them descend down into the catacombs.

Karkat sits on a rock, and waits it out.

He really could have dealt with this better. He maybe should have said no-- he can only imagine what everybody else is thinking, because it has to be something like what he's thinking, which is a swirling wreck of questions and fears. Was it the right idea? Would something go wrong? Politically, it was bad enough the clown drew attention to himself at all. Sollux was right.

He picks up a stick, beside him, and draws idly in the dirt. A big, looping shape, that eventually connects back its origin.

Maybe they rushed into it. Maybe things were going too fast, like they had before. He had everything back, again-- every old friend, and new ones. No Alternia. No game. No threat of death, or despair. And though hemoism wasn't dead, as last night's town hall had certainly proved, the empire certainly was. He could rest easy about that, at least.

And somehow, nothing had really changed. He still didn't know what to do.

Especially not about Gamzee, not that he ever really had.

“Just aggressively fuck up everything like you always do, at least the unfeeling machinations of paradox don't appear to give a shit.” And he tosses the stick down into the squiggles, and leaves it at that.

It's about an hour before they come back up, and Karkat rushes to meet them. He screeches to a halt, however, when he sees the clown, and his beatpump about does too.

“Holy shit.”

His lip is bleeding, and he walks with one arm limp and cradled to his side. Scratches litter his arms, where visible, and his eyes look swollen-- not as if he's been crying, but as if he could, and Karkat takes a sharp breath and hopes very, very much that he won't. “What happened? Is he okay?”

“I didn't think they would hurt him.” She almost does sound sorry. “They were anxious.”

“I'm okay,” He says, in a way that sounds like he isn't. But he's standing, on legs that shake, and that's when Karkat notices what should have been most obvious.

Under his shirt, there's a noticeable protrusion of his stomach. Not so large as more than what aught to hang off a healthy troll, normally-- it's not even as much as the fat around Karkat's middle-- but it's unnaturally firm and round, and unsettlingly obvious against how thin the rest of him is.

“Wow.” Karkat lifts a hand to his hair, and tries to politely avert his eyes. He isn't very successful, because it looks _weird_ , and _strange_ , and _sick_ , and something about it turns in his stomach. Suddenly he regrets everything, and his mouth starts working against him. “So, it, uh. Worked?”

“Fifteen eggs, each about the size of a fiduspawn unit.” Kanaya's voice carries just a _note_ of pride, and something about Gamzee withers. “But they'll get bigger as they grow.”

He still can't look away. “So he's done, right? We can take him home now.”

“They have to be fertilized within the evening, and then he should rest for a day or two. To see how he feels. He can go back to work after that, for as long as he's mobile.”

Gamzee finally speaks. “You motherfuckers are wanting at me to work, like this?”

It surprises Karkat, too, but as he thinks it over he isn't sure what to say. Kanaya has her answer; “This isn't a free lunch. Those fields are important. Everyone needs to contribute, or we starve. Your job is still your job.”

She's right, as usual. Somebody would have to work double in his place, and Karkat can't imagine anybody who would like it. But it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks.

“Gamzee, do you think you can work like that?” And something about being asked makes everything on his face settle, and the scarecrow of a highblood lowers the claw of the arm clutched to his side to cup under the subtle protrusion of his belly. He doesn't shrug, and his eyes keep flitting back up and down, like he's trying to look them in the eye. He never does.

“Yeah, motherfucker. I guess.”

“Don't push it too much. Be careful.” And because Kanaya seems a little burned, he continues. “But she's right. We'll just play it by ear, okay? Tell somebody if you're not feeling well.”

He nods. Kanaya raises a hand against the sun, which is starting to crawl back down to the horizon.

“We should leave.” She looks back, and gives Gamzee a once-over, and Karkat actually sees her suck a lip between her teeth in consideration. “Are you ready?”

Gamzee sours quickly, to that. “I'm _fine_.” He tugs the cloak he'd brought around his shoulders and pushes past the both of them, not looking back as he stomps off towards the town.

Karkat watches, reluctant to follow even as Kanaya starts after him. Since it would be stupid to stand here with his thumbs in his pockets hoping to sink into the depths of the earth, he picks himself up and starts trotting after them, taking up the end of the chain. He steps around the drawings from earlier, now marred by the others' footprints, and continues on the long road back to town.

 

*******

 

By the time they get there, Gamzee is in the back, and they have to slow considerably to let him keep up. He's hissing in breaths and making other terrible noises, and frequently has to stop to lean on a tree or hill. Karkat feels caught between their nerves, though Kanaya is doing her best not to look impatient, and Gamzee is pretending he isn't bothered or struggling.

“Ain't a thing,” he tells them. “We can keep going, really.”

But as clear as day it's a fucking lie, because at the next tree he's leaning into it and sucking breaths down carefully. Kanaya keeps looking between him and the darkening sky, but deliberately says nothing. Karkat sighs-- he gets it. The clown is his responsibility.

“Come on, this isn't working.”

Gamzee looks up in fear until sees Karkat step off the path into the forest, rummage through the underbrush, and produce a dead sapling tossed over in the windstorm of a few weeks ago. He takes out his sickle, trims away the branches, and snaps it at a reasonable height after measuring it against his own stature. What he has to give Gamzee, when he comes back, is a suitable walking stick.

“Take it easy, remember?”

Gamzee watches the thing being offered to him for some time, like it's going to turn into something else, but eventually takes it. He nods, and gets up, and starts following them again – Karkat stays ahead, but not by so much he couldn't maybe try to save the poor bastard a broken collarbone if he fell.

“So, where were you planning to do this?”

Kanaya seems to already know what he's implying. “His house. Where he could stay, when I was done.”

“Too far. Do you see this guy? He probably couldn't make it to the storage hive.” Karkat looks back, over his shoulder, briefly. “Uh. Sorry.”

“Truthfullness ain't nothing worth motherfucking apologies.”

“Okay.” He turns to Kanaya. “We'll have to take him to my place.”

She raises an eyebrow, to that, and all at once in his head Karkat can hear a million unwelcome speculations about what his intentions are. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He says. “Is there stuff you need?”

“At my house, yes. It'll be quick.”

“I need you to pick that up first, then take him home. I still need to go see how the rest of the day went.” Karkat raises his hands to his head, filtering his grasping digits between his hair, slotting horns between middle and ring finger. “They're going to be fucking _litigious_ about it when I get back _.”_

“Tell them I needed your help. I'll repay you if I can.”

“No, it's okay. I'll bear the brunt of my shitty mistakes, thanks.” Still, the way the sky is going orange makes him nervous, and eventually he starts trotting ahead of both of them. In his head, he's wondering if he should leave them alone-- there's lots of concrete reasons he shouldn't, but, the more he weighs the possibility of Gamzee bashing her head in (or the possibility of her eating him, to be fair,) against the possibility of not, he eventually decides _'Fuck it, that would be just the sort of ending to this kind of day anyway wouldn't it.'_

“I'm going to run ahead,” he says back. “If anything, uh--”

“I know.” And Kanaya smiles in a _slightly_ sinister way that implies yes, indeed she does. “We'll meet you there.”

That's all the permission he needs to extract himself from this living hell of a situation, and Karkat goes rushing off.

He's completely winded by the time he reaches the field, but they're both still there, and they turn to watch as he puts his hands on his knees and gasps down lungfuls for a few minutes before he can speak.

“Sorry-- late-- clown-- fuck, it was a mess.”

Jane's expression betrays concern, but not exactly panic. “Slow down there, buster. Did something go wrong?”

“Yeah,” Sollux chirps. “He tried to run.”

“Fuck _you,_ first of all.” Karkat swings a finger in his direction, generally, and goes back to panting in a few more breaths before he stands up.

“Gamzee-- had trouble walking on the way back. It took forever. I didn't want to just-- you know. When we got close enough to town, I ran ahead.” Karkat looks to the field, which in the fading sunset, seems weirdly fucking picturesque. Especially with the blooming potatoes and sprouts of cabbage out behind it, sprawling out in a sea of rippling green. It's weirdly satisfying. “Wow. That looks great.”

“Isn't it just the picture of agricultural bliss?” Jane leans on her rake, and smiles. “We didn't quite get the whole thing done, but shucks! We got pretty close.”

“Might have used my psionics a little.” Sollux grins.

Karkat squints. “You mean on seeds? Can you do that, with the precision problems Aradia talked about?”

“No.” Jane replies flatly. “He made a mess. It actually slowed us down.”

Sollux shrugs like he disagrees, and scuffs his toe into the dirt. Karkat expects they can hear the sigh that comes out of his reverberant thorax lobes from outer space.

“Alright, what I mean to say is that I'm sorry for missing out.” He eyes the wheelbarrow, and the tools. “I'll clean all this up for you guys, go home and have a hot meal. You really earned it.”

“So no meeting tonight?”

“No fucking way.” He pauses. “Unless you want to have one without me. Anyone can light the lanterns, so, go ahead. Kanaya and Gamzee won't be able to come either, for, uh. Obvious reasons.”

“Gotcha. Well, best of luck, Mr. Vantas.” Jane puts her rake in the wheelbarrow, stretches, and then takes the last tool from Sollux to hand to Karkat personally. “See you tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah. Bye.”

He waits until they both go some ways before gathering up the rest of the tools. Each one gets tossed a little unceremoniously in with the others, along with rocks and the burlap sack of the seeds they'd gathered from the mountains. It doesn't take him long to think he's finished, do a count over, and realize there is still one trowel missing.

“Fuck. Alright.”

It takes until the sky is a dark purple to find it, and finally he spots it lying out near the corner of the newly planted field. Gamzee must have dropped it like the panless huskfuck he is, and forgotten about it before it was time to leave. He walks over, picks it up, and dusts off the dirt with the end of his sleeve, sighing long and hard as he watches the dull hunk of metal rest in his hands.

That's just like Gamzee. Somebody could have stepped on this-- _he_ could have stepped on this, or maybe gotten it lost altogether. Everybody would have been so mad at him, because tools are hard to make, now that their iron reserves are low. They probably would have tried to run him out of town, or lock him up in the jailhouse Vriska wants so badly, or flog him. And it wasn't like Equius needed another reason to beat the shit out of the fucker. It's so hapless, so stupid, that he really wants to be angry about it. Especially since he'd had to bumble around in the near-dark like an idiot trying to find it.

Instead, he just feels sad.

He sighs again, turning it around, and holding it against his chest as he walks back.

Karkat deposits the tools in the storage hive, which is blissfully empty, allowing him to be alone with his thoughts. They're his only company for as long as the walk back to his hive is, but it's not long enough, because once at he's at the door-- to his own fucking house, he can't believe it-- he hesitates, holding a hand up like he intends to knock but can't. The walking stick he made now sits propped up on the wall, reminding him of what's inside.

Fuck, it's his own house. What is he thinking? He opens the door in a burst of courage, without knocking, and steps through.

Kanaya is there in the kitchen, helping herself to a kettle of tea from the stove. Karkat is about to be indignant that she used one of the blocks of firewood without asking, until he sees that there's another mug there for him sitting on the table. He sighs, and relaxes instantly, and collapses down into the chair by it like his body weighs twice as much as it should. She joins him, sitting across from the table just as before.

“Thanks,” He mutters, before taking a heavy drink from it. The warmth and light sweetness hits the spot-- he didn't realize how cold his fingers had gotten, and when the heat hits his belly he swears he could fall asleep right there.

“Gamzee made it, actually.”

Karkat looks up from his drink and pulls it from his lips immediately. “Really?” He looks down at it, then around at the empty block of the first floor. “Where is he?”

“Upstairs.” She nods her head briefly in that direction, and runs her thumb over the lip of her cup. “I, um. Put him in your bed. Sorry. He needed to lie down.”

“It's alright.” It really isn't, he thinks, because he wonders where _he's_ going to sleep. “Is he, uh. Okay? Did the... other thing? Go okay?”

“He's doing fine. The _other_ thing went well.” Her face doesn't make it look like it went well. Karkat imagines it actually went pretty terrible. She'd had to go around asking (willing) participants to bring her pails the last morning, he's sure, not to mention however it was she actually-- Karkat resigns to stop thinking about it immediately, and takes another drink of tea instead. It's good. It's infinitely better than imagining whatever it was Kanaya would have to do to coax a communal mixture of genetic material into Gamzee's nook, which Karkat is trying very, very hard _not_ to imagine.

“I wanted to talk to you about that, by the way.”

Fuck. He sets the tea down.

“I kind of assumed you wouldn't want to. You know. Contribute.”

“I _don't._ ” Karkat leaves no room for misinterpretation when he says it, though his tone isn't woundful. “Do we have to talk about this?”

“I just thought I should give you the opportunity.” Kanaya pauses, and Karkat can practically hear her thinking it, even before she says it. “I understand why you wouldn't. The history, and all that.”

“It's not that.”

It gives her pause, long enough that Karkat feels compelled to finally look up from his drink and meet her eyes. They're concerned, in an expression softer and more genuine than she usually gives to people, and he knows what they mostly have in common is a veil of bitter cynicism. His is just alarmingly more transparent.

“It's just.” His eyes wander. He wants to look at anything but anyone, right now. “What if one of them-- you know. What if I passed it along.”

Her shoulders sink, when she hears that, and her voice turns into something very gentle. “There's nothing wrong with you. You're a healthy troll, Karkat.”

“That's not what the others think. That isn't even what _I_ think. Fuck...” He puts his head down against his folded arms, keeping the tea enclosed in his fingers. It's warm, and comforting. “I just don't even want to think about it, okay? Do you know how guilty I would feel? The last thing you need is another candy-red asshole running for gold in the fuckup olympics, or giving me yet another opportunity to do it myself, kind of literally.”

“Karkat.” She lowers herself onto her elbows, massive height bent over the steaming tea that rests on the table-- Karkat watches that, instead, for as long as he can until he lifts eyes to meet her. He moves not a muscle more.

“I would be _proud_ if we had any of the grubs grow up to be anything like you. That is honest.” She says it in a way that reminds him of the poster girls of generals, of tall, ferocious battle matrons, the sort he once dreamed about following into war a long time ago when he was a wiggler. The authority of her voice and the cool green of her eyes are comforting in a way that makes him feel a little sick, but she's his friend, and she's trying, and he loves her very much for it.

He sighs another, long sigh. “Thanks. Sorry.” He sits up, and picks the tea into both hands, and cradles it there close to his thorax. “I'm exhausted, alright? I should sleep.”

“You've been awake all day.” She says, to state the obvious. “...What about the clown?”

“Fuck, I forgot.” Karkat rubs the palm of his hand into his cheek and up against his heavy eyes, and tries to pull the answer from the growing fog in his thinkpan. “I guess I'll just throw some things down on the floor, you know, like a fucking animal or something. Why not.”

“No, I mean what about the _clown_.” Kanaya's eyes narrow, and Karkat isn't sure he's ever heard her sound quite so detestful. “How do you know he won't kill you in your sleep?”

“For _fuck's_ sake, why would he do that?” Karkat drinks the tea to punctuate his incredulity, giving a noise of satisfaction when he's done. “We're drinking his tea, for crying out loud, and you actually say that. Besides, I left him alone with _you_ , didn't I?”

“I don't _sleep,_ ” she insists, and takes another swig of tea. The effect is chilling.

“God, Kanaya, do you have to make that sound so spooky?”

She smiles, and laughs gently, and Karkat returns it with a quiet chortle. He looks back down to his cup, which is almost empty, and polishes it off. He hopes there's more, and realizes he's hungry, too. He'll save it for when he wakes again for first crepuscular.

Kanaya waits until Karkat lowers the cup before she speaks. “Are you saying he's harmless?”

“No. Nobody's harmless.” Now empty, he turns it over in his hands, feeling its surface smooth and pure under his thumb and remembering when they first dug clay up from the riverside for the cups and spun them. “But he isn't going to kill us. I don't think he wants to hurt anyone.”

He knows in Feferi's house, the cups are painted with fish and mer-trolls, and wave caps, and Rose had theirs covered in patterns of blue lace. His are plain, and he rarely uses them, even for water.

Kanaya doesn't answer, but not in a way that makes him think she resents anything he said in particular. She doesn't say anything but what she really knows she wants to say, and Karkat likes that about her. He realizes he doesn't know what the cups in her house are like, or if she has them at all.

“Hey, uh. Could you stay here, for the night?”

He catches her eyebrows twitch just a little before she answers. “Suddenly you're worried?”

“No-- Well, _yeah_ , but don't you want to be here in case something happens? I mean, he is up there stuffed like a roast spleenfowl, and it weirds me out, and fuck if I know what to do if something goes wrong. I would sleep easier.”

“He's probably going to be fine.”

“Then do it for me? Shit, Kanaya, this is just. Really difficult. I can't believe I agreed to it. If there was ever a doubt that Karkat Vantas was the biggest mistake in the universe, I'm glad we could clear it up just now. I've got him up in my respiteblock. _My respiteblock_. Full of _eggs_. And this was _my idea_. Holy shit, Kanaya. Holy shit. What the fuck is wrong with me?”

She sighs. “Quell the histrionics. I'll stay. But only to make you feel better.” She stands from her chair, and puts it back under the table. He does the same, and though they could exchange any more words, they don't. He gets his tea, and stands at the foot of the stairs to the second floor-- where his things are, for sleeping-- and steels himself for a while before he's ready to climb.

“Goodnight, Kanaya.”

She's set herself up in a corner next to the hearth, and rests there in the folds of her cloak like some sort of creepy apparition in a wiggler's daytime story. It's surprisingly comforting. “Goodnight, Karkat.”

And he goes upstairs.

 

*******

 

Karkat's hive is a small, two-story cabin set on the outer edge of the town's inner circle. The humans and Feferi live closer to the river, and to Equius and Nepeta in their house appended to the workshop and butchery, which share the kiln. It keeps its distance from any other homes, without being quite as remote as Kanaya's or Aradia's hives strewn a little farther into the wilderness. There is one, open room at the bottom, and one at the top, and the earth closet outside, but that is all. It's not the smallest or largest house in the settlement, but it is one of the warmest, and Karkat is just as meticulous at keeping it well groomed and under repair as he was with his own hive on Alternia. No dishes are ever left out, and dust never accumulates anywhere. Even the weeds are pulled from around the road outside, and he'd lined the walkway to his door with cobble.

It was a nice house, really. He didn't hate it. He actually liked it-- strangely, he liked it a lot more than anywhere else he'd ever lived, even if there was no running water, or power, or even a thermal hull. Dirk said that sort of thing wouldn't be possible for another halfsweep.

But not tonight. Tonight, it feels like being caught in the eviscerbear's throat, and he can see the teeth snapping shut around somewhere above him.

When he gets to the second floor, Gamzee is waiting. He lays there in the bed like a cadaver save for the sort of forlorn gaze he sends out the window. Karkat takes a breath.

He stands there and takes in how surreal it is, for a moment, until the clown turns to look at him. Neither of them say a word. There's frogs out there, in the night, that are peeping and croaking in exactly the way they hadn't during yesterday's rain, and he listens to them instead of doing anything. Karkat hadn't heard them until now, and though that's a weird thought to have while staring down the withered visage of his ex-moirail, it's still the only thought he has to distract him.

“Hey.” Gamzee croaks out. He makes the frogs sound like songbirds by comparison, because his voice is androgynous, but rough from something like disuse.

“Hi.” Karkat thinks, somehow, there was something better to have said.

Sitting there in a place he shouldn't be, framed by the moonlight, Gamzee is really the platonic ideal of himself. He looks especially strange, and especially off-putting, and haunting, and Karkat really wishes there was anything to do but step into the room and talk to him. But there really isn't.

It's dark, though, so first he lights a lantern, and sets it down on the desk by his bed. Sitting there is what he guesses was Gamzee's cup of tea, which is now empty. There's a chair he usually keeps by the bookshelf, so he pulls it up, sets it a comfortable distance from the bedside, and sits down. His own mug is getting warm in his grip, so he switches hands.

He sees Gamzee eying it, and in a second, sighs, and hands the clown the mug. There's a pause, but not too much of a long one before Gamzee takes it and cradles it up in front of his lips, drinking carefully but deeply. Karkat guesses it's still hot, for him. It seems to do him alright, and when his hands fall back to rest in his lap, he tremors a little less.

They just sit there, quietly, and Karkat doesn't know what else he was expecting. He shifts around, rubs at one arm with the other, and looks at his own knees.

Gamzee finally moves, setting the empty cup down next to its partner on the bed stand. “Hey, brother. You wanna see?”

Karkat looks up. “What?”

Gamzee doesn't wait for another response. He tugs off his shirt, quickly, and Karkat would be surprised or even scandalized if it was anybody else. He almost forgets not to be.

Without the fabric, the distention of Gamzee's belly is obvious. It's still not a lot, he guesses, or not as much as it will be, but it still chills him to look at. What's more is the angry lines of Gamzee's ribs as they fight against his skin, and the mottled bruises and scratches up and down his sides, layered over an extensive collection of scars. His rumble spheres are pockmarked with what might be the attention of claws or teeth, and Karkat feels a breath ghost sharply through his clenched jaw at the sight.

Gamzee just kind of chuckles. It's a horrifying noise, in context.

He settles back down on the bed, lying flat, and looking out into the blue light of the window. Karkat watches him, and wonders what the fuck it is he's gotten himself into.

“Motherfucker you can be to touch it, if you're wanting.”

He doesn't react to the request, not at first, because it's fucking weird. Either he expected it, or it stunned him stiff, and the way his pan is fuzzing uselessly between his spongeclots doesn't let him figure out exactly which it is. But eventually he does reach out his grasping prongs, slowly, and rest them over the skin of Gamzee's exposed stomach. If you asked him, he'd have chalked the gesture up to pure curiosity.

The clown winces and shudders under Karkat's hand when he's touched, like the flesh is tender, though to Karkat it feels unnaturally firm and solid under the layer of Gamzee's scarce huskpadding. The protrusion of his stomach is visible and clear and fits up into the curve of Karkat's palm, and the bruises over his hips and shoulders make it impossible not to think about how it got that way.

He frowns. “Does it hurt?”

“Yeah.”

Gamzee's voice is so small that Karkat wasn't sure he'd spoken, at first. He leaves his hand there on the clown's swollen stomach until the sour feeling in him grows too potent to do so, and then slowly withdraws it to fold into the other on his lap. The thin shell of a troll shifts at the absence, but then sighs, and settles against the bed like he's made of something much heavier than flesh.

“Put so much up in me feel like ain't hardly is there room for myself.” He tilts his head back a bit and closes his eyes, and swallows, like he's remembering something. His spidery hands are linked together just below his solar plexus, and just above the rise of his belly, and for the rest of the moment Karkat just watches him breathe with something sort of like horror. He really can't imagine what it's like. Right now, he looks like something that's about to break open, and it scares him.

He's looking for something to say, but never quite finds it, and ends up just sitting there at the side of the bed feeling pretty fucking useless, all in all. Gamzee just lies there, and breathes, and eventually rolls on the side that lets him face away. He makes a sound like it's difficult, and Karkat's eyebrows peak in concern.

“Hey, I can get Kanaya, if you need me to.”

“Naw, brother, don't do that.”

“Okay.” He withdraws a little, not really sure when it was he leaned closer, and spends another while just sitting there. If things were different, maybe he'd be on the bed with him, hand curved over Gamzee's ribs, stroking consolingly between his shoulders and hips. A big part of him wants things to be different. But they're not.

The frogs are still outside, somewhere, until something scares them. They all go quiet, and that's that, for a while.

“If anything starts to feel weird, we're both here.”

“I know, brother.” And finally he turns his head, a little, not quite enough to look back over his shoulder. “Motherfucker?”

Karkat perks, a little. “Yeah?”

“If I am to be all up on this here motherfucking recuperation slab, where the fuck is a most wickedly bitchin' hospitable ninja gonna get his gandershut at?”

It takes him a while to process that. It's the most words he thinks he's heard Gamzee say at once since-- well, maybe a sweep ago. “Uh. I'll just-- you know what, no, keep the extra blanket. I can use our cloaks or something, I'll stay on the floor.”

“Uh--”

“Not another word, fuckmunch. You're full of eggs.” he stands up, and picks up the comforter from the foot of the bed, and tosses it over him mostly to get the wounds out of sight. “Just get some sleep. And try not to like, explode, or get violently ill all over my stuff, or whatever other horrible thing might happen to you.”

Gamzee laughs, gently. It's weird, but it makes him want to smile. He somehow manages not to.

Karkat goes back downstairs briefly to get the cloaks and one of the cushions from the chairs, and heads back up to arrange himself a sad little spot set up against the far wall. It looks abysmal, and when he lays down, it feels only a bit better than nothing would have-- but it's still a million times improved compared to their nights before the first shelter. Karkat imagines after that, he'll never complain about sleeping arrangements ever again, no matter how long he lives.

He blows out the lantern and rolls onto his back, instead, because that's marginally a little better. Staring at the ceiling fits the especially sort of self-reflective mood he's in, the kind where you list back all of your decisions and experiences in your long, awful day, and count how much you regret each and every one of them for having to happen to you.

Sitting there, he thinks back to the trowel. He'd almost forgotten about it.

“Hey, Gamzee?”

He hears the clown shift around somewhere in the dark. “Yeah, brother?”

“I. Um.” He thinks about the wounds, instead, and the eggs, and stops. “No, nevermind. Sorry. Goodnight.”

“G'night, brother.”

“Goodnight.” He rolls away, thoroughly embarrassed with himself. Maybe he'll bring it up tomorrow.

The frogs start up again, and shortly after, Karkat is more than tired enough to let their sounds end his day.


	3. Intermission 01

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Intermissions will appear, well, intermittently. They aren't mandatory to understand the other chapters, but introduce supportive elements all of their own.

Rose's house is a wide, bright cottage even farther into the forest than Gamzee's, deep into the woods on the river side of town. They stay there in the middle of the week, and on the weekends sleep in the library by town hall where they work. In both buildings there are books, tombs of them that move back and forth between the establishments depending on Rose's current topic of study. They sit in shelves and in colorful piles, in bright squares of light from the windows, gathering the shimmering dust motes from the air.

Outside, the forest is thick, and the road that winds back through the trees and into the farms goes far enough that the buildings of the town can't be seen. Just beyond the roofed porch is a small garden, used to cultivate anything useful they and Roxy can find in the underbrush.

One of Roxy's mutated cats, a stowaway within her inventory, now lives mainly on the porch-rail outside, or on Rose's lap as they read or study. Indoors and out, it's a place that smells of herbs and potions and books and young plantlife, and Rose particularly likes its resemblance to the huts of witches in the old stories they used to read as a child.

Today, they wait in the chair outside the door, petting the cat idly and listening to the birds. It's a day off, one of two within the week, and they are expecting a visitor.

Jane is visible crossing the stream long before she arrives, and Rose lifts their hand from the cat to wave. It's impossible to tell from the distance, but as she waves back with enthusiasm, Rose is pretty sure there's a beaming smile.

Rose goes inside, and prepares the literature for review.

 

-

“These are all the books you wanted-- complete textual curriculum of medical courses, along with introductory biology, herbalism-- I'll help with that, as we discussed-- home remedy, and various encyclopedia. It's all been outlined. And an electronic version for use at the stations in the library if you can get Dirk away from it. He's been dedicated to the plumbing, lately.”

“He always did like showers.” Jane pours over the books-- and there is a lot, maybe more than can be carried easily. Some are old, for being strange, ageless things that had somehow tumbled into the meteors of the veil, others are new enough to have been from earth or even alchemization. “You really brought everything, didn't you? I'd be surprised if I didn't peek into that sylladex of yours and find out you'd pilfered in the kitchen sink, along with the rest of it!”

“Not quite the sink. A bathtub, maybe. I'm sure there's a book on sinks.” And they pause, thinking it over. “But to be honest, it's probably being borrowed. You can guess by who.”

Jane smiles at the joke, but doesn't look up from the book.

“Jane? Will that be good enough?”

“Yeah? Oh.” She closes _Emergency Response_ , setting it atop a thick medical encyclopedia. “This is all great! I can't imagine it's going to be quite as good as the real thing, but, really, how better could anything else be? Thank you for helping me.”

“No need. As you were aware, I had to look into this anyway. We are in a University without expert, miss Crocker, and because of that experience will have to be our teacher.” Rose leans back into their wooden chair, and scratches their nails gently into the scruff of the cat on their lap. “I had a feeling you would be the one to take up the challenge, though. And it's important we have something like a doctor, around, at least enough to deal with the basics. But I had something I wanted to ask you.”

Jane looks up. “Oh?”

“What made you want to do this? What peaked your interest, I mean. I'm sorry if that's a weird question.”

Jane grins, reassuringly. “Aw, well. Not at all. For one, there was an obvious need! And the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the thing that I aught to do. Not that I ever had much of an interest in medicine, before, of course.”

There's a nod that Rose gives her, because it's something they can understand. “Things have changed.”

“That's exactly what I mean. It's just us. Back on earth, you're one in a few billion. But here-- there's so many important things to be done. And everyone wants to do something worthwhile, you know. Something that grounds them. That's easier now, isn't it?”

Jane takes a pause to reach out for one of the painted cups of tea Rose had prepared earlier, and takes an emphatic swig. It was Rose who grew and collected the town's supply, and almost instantly, it was just the thing you would do if you had guests. Particularly in winter, the excuse for a warm beverage had been welcome.

“I do take it seriously, I swear so. It's not like I plan to rummage around in people's innards for the fun of it! But in the end, it needs doing, and..." She lifts her shoulders; the leather bag full of books strains and whines. “It's a way to help. I think that's the sort of thing anybody would want to do.”

Rose nods, and reaches out to turn one of the books around with the tip of their finger, then traces the lines of the illustration with their nail. “I think that's a wonderful reason to do something. You're going to be a great doctor.”

“Aw. Is that your powers, or are you just being nice?”

Rose smiles a knowing, careful smile. “Well how is it really magic, if I tell you?”

Jane laughs. “You really are something! The marvelous witch of the woods. And we're all glad for it.” She stands, collects the last few books into the already swollen bag, and adjusts how it sits on her hips. “I guess I should go back. You know, I doubt Karkat is going to show up in time to finish the planting. But you really should come in to visit sometime! We can try to cook up something nice.”

“I'd like that. Goodbye, Jane.”

She leaves, parcel in tow, down the road back towards the village. Rose follows at least to the porch, but otherwise stays there as if on the edge of a threshold, a spell which reaches only to the foot of the stairs. It's not for a little while that they see the figure out by the edge of the woods, turned away as if considering the scenery. But Rose knows, from who it is, that they're as aware of them as they are of the spring green in the illuminated canopy, and the specks of red flowers in the grass.

Terezi turns around, finally, and walks up into the shadow of the house, linking her hands together in front of her. Pensive is the word, Rose thinks. After a moment spent in silence, she speaks in her loud, grating, alien voice.

“There's something I need to ask you.”

Rose nods, only once, and together the two of them go inside.


	4. Snake Belly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -This- certainly took long enough, and there are so many things I'm trying to grasp properly at once, it was hard in the making. But much like dinosaurs, fanfic finds a way.
> 
> Warnings for; emetophobia, brief mentions of sexual trauma, and depersonalization.

**Three months earlier**

 

Karkat cradles a bundle beneath his arm, listening to the crunch of snow under his feet. It's light, and not as much as they had to give, but enough. One cloak and one set of strikers. There were matches in their stores, but only so many, and those were far too important to bring here. It would have been impossible to convince the others to part with them.

They had met their new world in winter. A few weeks after their arrival the first snows fell, and it was obvious the initial challenge would be staying warm. It could have been colder, Rose said, as familiar as they were with months of snowfall and ice. The humans knew they could deal with it. There'd even been a sort of celebration the first day, and fresh out of their victory it was hard not to feel their optimism at the start. But to trolls, it was all too strange.

Alternia had been hot almost all over. Its deserts, hot enough to kill all but the coldest of Jadebloods and the hard-carapaced scythegrinders, or the shambling undead, with their shriveled husks imperishable as they were. But now it rests all over the ground in cover a few days thick, and by now Karkat thinks he's had _just about enough_ of it. He admires the pretty way it coats the grass and rooftops, but resents how the air bites at his nose and hands. It's dangerous.

It was too much for them sometimes. Many of the trolls had taken to retreating back into the main storage hive just to stay warm, their own homes too uncomfortable and too hard to heat. That's when they'd really started worrying. Equius had made the fire kits, and Kanaya had made the cloaks out of whatever there was to make them with. Recycled cloth and the hides of animals in the woods, mostly, and both were in thorough supply. “All that work for a frigid deathtrap,” he'd mumbled once. Jade had told him to cut the attitude, and that was that.

The supplies were what he carried now. There had been enough made for everyone, but not everyone had come to the hall to collect it-- Gamzee hadn't so much as left his house since it was built, as far as anybody knew. For a few days, Karkat was content to leave the supplies there, thinking eventually he'd pick them up. In a week, they still sat alone on their table in the storage barn, and finally his resolve crumbled.

Nobody had actually _seen_ Gamzee at all, not definitively, though a few people claimed to catch glimpses of him before dark. It was possible he was eating his share of the fish and venison, and Roxy's woodland pickings of berries and wild things, but equally impossible to confirm that he'd ever come into the town. He was as much of a specter as he had been before they arrived and everybody was content letting it stay that way, leaving him to his own off-putting devices.

When Karkat sees the tiny house out there, on the edge of the forest a fucking league out from the last building in town, he swallows down his nerves and approaches the door.

It's a small shack, really, not even as big as the shed Kanaya has beside her home for tailoring work. Even though it was made as recently as anywhere else, already it seems to droop under its own weight, as if somehow made of heavier stuff. The stove isn't lit, and he knows because no smoke comes from the chimney. It's a strange place. It doesn't feel real. _Maybe he's not home_ , Karkat thinks. _Or maybe he's dead._

That thought leaves him relieved at first, then guilty. He walks up to an arm's reach of the door, and hovers there.

He wonders how he's going to do this; he could knock, probably, or just leave the things and go. His nerves are working against him, and he's about to, until the door cracks open during his hesitations and stays open just wide enough for Gamzee to appear on the other side.

Karkat thinks he's never seen a troll look worse. Gamzee's eyes are sullen and dark and his hair sits in a thick, shiny curtain of tangles around his face. He looks at Karkat through the door like some kind of intruder, like a threat, holding it open only a few inches from the frame. Karkat can see his hands-- purple stains his claws and rest along his skin in beading lines. He shivers, and Karkat can see why. It's not like he's wearing much; he has the same frayed shirt as always, thin and worn enough that it hangs off every bone.

He can do this. It's easy. Karkat keeps his expression flat, even steels his gaze and lowers his eyebrows against the clown's demeanor, and offers the bundle out with a stiff motion of his arm. “We made these to keep warm. You didn't come get yours.”

Something strange happens. He swears there's a change in his expression, a flash of something wounded, but in a moment it's gone. What's left is a glare and the uncomfortable feeling that something is about to happen. Karkat is ready to move, or speak, when a hand reaches out and sinks claws deep into the cloak and kit, and all at once the door is shut again and he's alone outside with the snow and the cold.

He can hear sounds of shuffling and disturbance from inside the house, and something topples with a clatter. Karkat flinches at the noise.

“All you motherfuckers can fuck off,” he hears him muttering, because the house is poorly made and bleeds noise like a stomach wound. “All of you. All you motherfuckers can just...”

And then he hears a different noise, one he pretends not to.

Karkat puts one arm into another, worrying his cold fingertips against the thickness of his sweater, and walks back home.  
  


**Present Day**

He wakes up long before the sun rises.

His back hurts, is the first thing. Karkat gives a stretch and arches it up off of the wood of the floor, and slowly sits, reaching his arms forward towards his toes while the vertebrae snap and complain. There's a great deal of sighing, and rubbing at his aching shoulders, and stirring slowly from the dreams and the memories to ask _why the fuck am I on the floor in the first place, exactly, and who's the imperial shitcadet from fuckoff planet who put me here_?

When he looks up, and sees the bed occupied off to his right, he remembers. Karkat discovers that _he_ is the imperial shitcadet, it is him, as per usual. There's really not much else to do about it but sit there and stare for a while.

Gamzee has pulled the blankets tight around himself in his sleep, and Karkat can only see the top of his wild hair and his long, curling horns. He checks himself, briefly, not out of any kind of disbelief that he hadn't been maimed or dismembered in his sleep, but as a sort of way to reaffirm what he told Kanaya earlier. He was right. Well, of course he was.

There's something awful about sitting here, so in practiced routine Karkat removes himself from his makeshift bed, throws one of the cloaks around his shoulders, lights the lantern, and heads down the stairs.

Kanaya is waiting. She hasn't moved an inch, and her hooded figure rests on the chair ominously. He spends a minute shaking it off, and walks into the center of the room rubbing his arms against the cold. The fire in the broiler's gone out, and the air has gone chilly in his absence, but she doesn't seem to mind. “Okay, know I say this as gently as I possibly can, but sometimes? You look _really_ spooky when you just sit there like that. I don't know if it's the undead thing or what.”

She doesn't respond for a moment, slitted eyes staring into the middle distance. But then she stirs, and looks up, flashing a fanged smile. “Sorry. Check the counter.”

He does. There's the freshly dead carcass of a rabbit, with a large slit up its belly and a tale-tale set of pockmarks on its neck. “Oh, yuck,” he says, but goes to pick it up anyway. “Did you do this?” and then, with a pause. “...With your _teeth_?”

“Maybe.” Her eyes shift around in a way that tells Karkat _Absolutely Yes_. “Well--you know. I thought you could use it for breakfast. I've already had the blood.”

“Obviously. Alright, Thanks.” It sounds less genuine than he means it to, but he knows she understands, and that's that. He still can't really believe she went out and brought him a dead thing she killed with her mouth, because she isn't a domestic purrfiend by any stretch of the imagination. But at least it's something to put in the cabbage.

Kanaya stands and adjusts her cloak around her shoulders while he stares the thing over, and heads towards the door. Something sort of goes uneasy in Karkat's stomach, and he steps after her a bit. “Where are you going?”

“To work. I need to cut the firewood I gathered yesterday. Then I'd like to go home and try to put this night behind me.” She looks back at him over her shoulder, nonetheless, and seems to understand why he asks. But she still lets him speak first.

“I was just thinking, you know...”

“Yes, I know.” She turns, and full shape of her height in the light of the lantern really makes an impression, and once again Karkat thinks about what a troll she is, while still not being one, not anymore. “But you were right. I should have trusted you; It'll be fine.”

“I just. It's hard.”

She narrows her eyes a bit, then looks away in a manner that could sort of be compared to rolling them, and Karkat stands there-- realizing in a minute he's standing there effectively pouting, and holding a rabbit she had to get for him, and altogether it's a bit much. He puts the dead thing down.

Finally, her indignation leaves her in a sigh. “You have to deal with it. You're the one that wanted him here.” And surprisingly, it doesn't sound as cruel as it could. He nods, prongs stuffed in his pockets, and says nothing more as she opens the door and steps out into the fading night. “But If his condition should change, you know where to find me.”

“Yeah, I do.”

She nods, with a sympathetic smile, and then she's gone. Left with nothing else to do but feel out of place, Karkat eventually sets to skinning and cooking the hare for breakfast. It's a nasty thing to do, but once Jade had shown him how, he hadn't forgotten. He's sure he'll get used to it.

He has about an hour before work at first crepuscular begins, so he sets the food to cook and heats up a bin of water to clean up with, bemoaning the lack of fresh clothes. He'll wash them all on his next day off, which is in another two. It's sort of the condition they're all in, but goes so far against his urge to keep everything perfect he still picks at every stain and grimaces at every odor of the clothes he puts on again. A part of him is still on Alternia, where he thinks the loose hem of his sweater will somehow be a herald of his destruction, the thing that gives him away.

But around here, everyone already knows everything.

When he's done with that, he moves to breakfast. On accident he hadn't eaten lunch yesterday, so he makes extra, and sits down at the table while the sky starts to brighten slowly outside the window. Some sort of bird makes a whooping sound, and by now the air in the room is warmer.

Pretty soon there's a different noise. He tenses up like something wild when he hears the footsteps, and waits for a moment before he looks over to see Gamzee hovering there at the base of the stairs like some sort of ghost. He looks about the same as he did coming out of the caverns, except now his torso is bare and the bruises have settled into a deep, mottled purple. There's a whole mess of feelings, all at once, and Karkat chases all of them down into a corner somewhere and kicks them tidily into submission. Not fucking today, no way. Not ever again, if he can help it.

He decides he will do the reasonable thing, and he will say nothing, and go back to eating his food with part of his tongue held against the backs of his molars just to be safe. Gamzee doesn't say anything, either, but eventually does wander over to the table to pull away a chair and set himself down, with a noise like it hurts. That's when his resolve breaks, and he looks up at the bruised, hissing thing sitting at his table, and worries his teeth against a lip.

“Hurts still?”

Gamzee's eyes trace over the boards of the table, and he shrugs. Karkat looks back to his food.

“Hey, uh. You didn't eat, yesterday.”

There's no reason for Gamzee to be frightened, yet he looks that way, and nods the way you would to dismiss a question. The room is quiet, and it's a long, terrible thing to endure. He still doesn't speak even after it becomes unbearable, and eventually Karkat sighs, and pushes what's left on his plate over towards the clown. “I'll get some more. Go ahead and finish that.”

Gamzee looks away from it, even moves himself from it physically like it could hurt him. He keeps it up for as long as he can until the silence and Karkat's stare is oppressive enough to coax him back, and finally caves like a beaten dog. He wilts over the plate and helps some of the fried potatoes into his mouth, slowly, cautiously, like expects something bad to happen. The fork trembles, but he manages, loooking all the while as if it pains him.

That's too much to watch. Karkat removes himself from the table almost immediately, and takes his time making a second plate for breakfast. He keeps his gaze straight ahead into what he's doing, while somehow paying it absolutely no attention, and does his absolute best not to look behind him or think about it, either.

But eventually he does come back, sitting down with his second plate. He's not hungry enough for all of it, and in a gesture he immediately regrets, he tips a little over the side onto Gamzee's now empty nutrition plateau as if in a daze. This time, Gamzee doesn't wait at all, and eats like it's the first meal he's had in sweeps. It's a sight that makes Karkat's appetite all but disappear, but knowing he needs the food, he works it down.

When Gamzee is done eating, he leans back, and shivers, arms wrapped around his bare waist over the curve of his stomach.

“If you're cold, go back upstairs and put on your shirt.” He almost sounds angry, because he is, in a way.

Gamzee shrugs, and stares at a spot on the floor.

Suddenly it's as bad as he thought it was going to be.

Karkat finishes his food, puts the dish unwashed on the counter, and hurries to the door. He can feel Gamzee's eyes looking into him as he opens it to leave, and just barely can stand turning around to say goodbye.

“There's a pump outside for water to heat up, if you want to clean yourself. Just stay here and-- don't _do_ anything, okay?”

He goes out the door and lets it swing shut behind him, heading down the path and onto the road. He only gets a few steps before it opens again, and tenses his shoulders for the incoming question.

“Karkat?”

He could just ignore him. He'd be in the right to, he tells himself. But he doesn't. His feet slow to a stop and he turns himself to look around-- out here, the air is chill but warming, and there's a hint of the sunrise out to the east beyond the trees, and something about the way Gamzee's figure leans in the doorway doesn't disturb him quite in the ways he wanted it to.

“Motherfucker, if I am to be stayed at here, could a brother pick up for me some things at my hive.”

Karkat looks away, and guesses that's not the worst thing imaginable. He can't find a reason why he wouldn't. “Uh. Yeah, sure. What do you want?”

“Ain't much. Just a bag in the corner.”

“Okay.” And they meet eyes, for a second, kind of on accident. Gamzee stares away first, and Karkat watches him as he watches something else-- the fields, probably, and the noise of the crickets that sing in them. Everything is a warm purple, from the light, including the troll in front of him in all his disproportions. It would look nice, probably, if that's what it was. No, it does look nice. Everything looks this idyllic at sunrise, even him.

“I'm going to work. You should go back inside.” Karkat looks him over, how he's standing there in his pants and nothing more, and can't help a stare at his stomach and bruises. “You're not even dressed.”

Gamzee doesn't answer. He doesn't move, either.

“I'll be back later. Just-- stay in the house, okay?”

If Gamzee feels offended, or sad, or relieved, or anything, he doesn't show it. It's familiar in a bad way.

“Yeah. Okay.”

Karkat takes that to be good enough. He leaves him unsupervised, in his home, despite all better judgment, because he really would rather have the whole thing burn to the ground than have to stay here a moment longer with all of the things that spin around in the gutters of his hemopump. He turns and walks towards the fields with as quick of a pace as he can manage without being too obvious. Somehow he knows, without looking, that behind him Gamzee stays in the doorway to watch him go long after he's walked far enough to be anything but a small, bobbing dot against the edge of the road, the rising sun warm against his back. And in time, he walks even further than that.

**\---**

When Karkat arrives at the fields, the sky is still dim, and he can be alone with the crops for a while.

He pours himself into the last of the planting, hoping to finish before anyone else arrives for the morning work shift. If he thinks about that, he won't think about anything else. Not eggs, or clowns, or the myriad of problems that are sure to spring up in their overlap. There's a list of other things that need doing; the grass out by the trees needs to be cut and raked into windrows, storage should be checked for mold, the charcoal kilns need turning over. If he made that his excuse, he could visit them on his way back, maybe decide he has to help Equius clean out the whole thing. It'd be a hard job. It could even take all day. Maybe he'd be stuck there, and unable to return to his house until the evening.

That's when he stops himself. When he actually contemplates signing away his entire noon sleeping hours to scrubbing the charcoal bins in a hot kiln, he knows he's lost it.

Sollux is out of shift today, so Jane and Roxy arrive a little later. With the wheat planted, they water and check the fields for rot and weeds, while Karkat goes to cut the grass with his sickle before the dew from the morning can dry in the growing sunlight.

He'd never imagined he'd actually use this thing for _agriculture_.

He's spreading out the trimmings to dry when something catches on the tooth of the rake, sparkling in the morning sun. He thinks he's caught one of the garter snakes and rolled it to show its white belly until he realizes the bright, silvery strip isn't scales, but a chain. Karkat squints, and sets down the tool, kneeling into the grass and brushing it away from the necklace until he can bring it up to hang from his fingers. The charm at the end hangs solid, and he holds his palm up below it until it sits flat on his grey skin, as if that makes it any easier to understand. At the end of the chain is his symbol in symmetrical silver curves; he doesn't know what to think, turning it around in his fingertips over and over.

It's Aranea's necklace, he remembers. The image of her wearing it comes to mind after a while-- but that doesn't explain why he's found it. Aranea isn't here. None of the ghosts were; like the cherubs and sprites, they'd been left behind on the other side of the door. So what was it doing in the field? It's still shiny, not even tarnished, as if it were dropped recently.

He doesn't have long to think about it before footsteps out in the grass interrupt him. For some reason, he panics, and stuffs the necklace quickly into one of his pockets before standing.

He doesn't expect to see Tavros. He's out there walking closer, coming through the distance between the mountain’s wooded foothills and the crop fields. Karkat narrows his eyes, but not in anger. Immediately, he has two questions.

“I thought you were taking the cows to the mountains today?” He looks around, checking the sky for clouds. “Fuck, don't tell me. Is it going to rain?”

“No, it's not.” Tavros comes up to the edge of the trimmed grass, but stops before the end of the last wilted row. He's taller than he ever used to be; and after all this time, Karkat can hardly remember what he looked like when they were kids. He swears they used to stand eye-to-eye, but now he can't be sure. They'd never spoken regularly before and that much hadn't changed-- through all this time in the new world, he'd barely seen Tavros, and Karkat had the feeling it was at least partially intentional.

He keeps looking off into the fields were Jane and Roxy are at work. His wings shudder a little as the breeze picks up, and Karkat watches how their thin compartments catch the light of the morning. He's not exactly envious; but as far as mutations go, he thinks it's obvious who came away with the short end of the fortune prong.

“I already did that thing, that was what you said. I'm just coming down here to do something important, and then I'll go back, to continue doing that.”

Karkat swears his eyebrows pull off an acrobatic maneuver to properly convey his incredulity. “So you just left them up there to get eaten by some ravenous howlfiend?”

“Okay, I resent the insinuation, for one, that I would do that. But it's okay.” he explains, unfolding his hands from around the strap of his shoulderbag to splay his fingers, and move them above his head in a gesture that explains to Karkat absolutely nothing until he speaks again. “I can sort of, feel them. You know what I mean. They don't need guidance, to be exactly where they currently are at the moment, because that would be ridiculous.”

There's a sort of an _Oh_ Karkat goes through, and regrets that it was such an obvious answer. “Okay. And what about the howlfiends?”

Tavros stares at him in a sort of unbelieving way, and repeats the gesture. Karkat's posture sinks. Right. Howlfiends are animals too.

There's an awkward pause, like there usually is when they talk. Tavros' hands go back to the strap of his bag in a moment, and once again he leans to spy past Karkat and out into crops. “Is Gamzee here?”

“ _What_? No. Why?”

In a moment, Tavros produces a small bundle from his bag, a square of burlap wrapped up in twine. He unties it and folds out a corner of the cloth, and Karkat steps forward to see a pile of small, tan roots washed and laid flat in rows. “Rose suggested to me that this is a thing I should bring to him, today, since I was up in the highlands, which is where they grow. They're good for that particular condition, which, I'm assuming, he happens to be in now. You're supposed to chew them.”

They don't look very appetizing. But at least they don't have a noticeable odor-- Karkat reaches out and takes the bundle slowly, retying the string to keep it shut. “Rose said it?”

“Rose said it,” Tavros repeats. Karkat sighs.

“I'll bring them to him. He's not working today, the drones roughed him up pretty bad.”

He freezes up a bit. Should he have said that? He doesn't know. Tavros grimaces with sympathy Karkat didn't anticipate, and it's at least somewhat comforting even if it shouldn't be. Still, Tavros doesn't seem sold about Karkat taking the roots, and gives them an eye while pressing a palm to the back of his skull. “Well, uh. I could bring them to his house, maybe?”

Karkat shakes his head. “He's not there. He's staying with me for a while.”

Tavros pulls his hand away. “ _Really_?”

“Yeah-- uh. It's just temporary. Only for a few days.” Karkat looks between him and the bag of roots, wondering if Tavros believes him. “I'll tell him you brought them and make sure he actually eats the damn things.” There's an afterthought he goes through, though it takes shoving the toe of his shoe into the ground until he has the confidence. “And, um. Thanks. And-- okay. Sorry about what I said, you know. About the howlfiends.”

Tavros shrugs, and shakes his head. “It's okay.”

“It's okay?”

“Well... the thing is, about that, I kind of expect it. From you, I mean.”

Karkat's shoulders drop. He watches as the bronzeblood turns away and walks a certain distance before his wings give a twitch in preparation for flight, and this time he really is jealous.

“Bye, Karkat.”

“Bye.”

And then he's off as soon as he came, flitting away back to the mountains. Karkat stands there alone with the small cloth packet held there in his hands.

In a while, he puts it in his bag, and gets back to work. He has another two hours before he has to leave to get Gamzee's things.

**\---**

The hours pass all too quickly, and he finds himself on the road to the clown's house almost before he consciously dedicates himself to the idea. He's bracing himself like one does against cold, but he doesn't know what for.

It turns out even getting into the damn place is a challenge. When he gets there, the door on Gamzee's house sticks, like it doesn't quite fit in the frame anymore or was broken. Karkat has to bully it open with his shoulder, and when he finally gets it past the hinges it only opens a foot or two before it bumps against a stack of firewood. That should really be outside, is his first thought, and his second is about how the floor is dirt-- not just dirty, but _dirt_ , and his third is about how a draft blows in from the window, and his fourth, his fourth is finally, _holy shit._

If it's miserable on the outside, it's twice that on the inside. It's dark, and the one window sheds a small beam of light through the fog of dust. The bed on the corner is small and unkept, stained, and the water basin sits at the foot of it instead of anywhere else. There's no room to store anything, not that Gamzee owns much to organize, but everything has something on top of it. The utensils are kept on the stove, the firewood on the ground or under the bed. There's an odor, a sort of sad and concerning one. Everything seems to be where it is on accident, and Karkat actually manages a brief reaction of disgust.

“Of course you live like this,” he grumbles, kicking aside some trash on the floor to make way into the center of the tiny room. The gesture feels hollow, and suddenly, he's not mad anymore.

He doesn't know why, but he looks through things-- the bed has stains, and though they're purple, they're too dark to be anything but blood. There doesn't seem to be any food. He wanders through like in a museum, stepping over things as they jut out and impose on the space. The walls, wooden like in his own home, carry the occasional line of grooves that seem to be from claws. Karkat traces them with the pads of his fingers, and worries.

Almost immediately, he wants to leave. Just standing there feels wrong, and heavy, like a punishment. There's absolutely nothing extra, nothing for comfort, everything just enough to facilitate itself. Every surface seems wrong to touch. Even the air is oppressive. To Karkat, it feels almost haunted.

There in the corner is the bag of things, and Karkat takes it, though he has to reach over the bedframe to get it. It's not very much, really. It's probably just his facepaint, and maybe whatever else it was that emptied from his sylladex when they'd confiscated it back on the other side of the door-- when those things still worked. Karkat doesn't really remember what they'd found other than that it was unusually sparse, by the time they'd gotten to him. The idea finally comes to him that they probably hadn't been the first to purge it.

Though it makes his chest heavy to stand there, he doesn't leave. He thinks if he stays for long enough, he'll soak in the feeling the room gives him, and something will make sense again. It somehow won't be as bad as it feels. But that isn't what happens; what does happen is that his eyes start to water, and Karkat rubs at them furiously almost as if he's surprised. _Alright_ , he thinks. _It's definitely time to go._

It's good to be outside; the trees and grass seem immediately more real. The fresh air hits him in a wave and he leaves about as fast as his feet will take him, until he realizes where he's going, and who he will meet there. Panic is starting to set in again. It's a nasty rolling thing that turns around in his stomach like a snake and swallows his thoughts before they rise up in him. He can't really think straight. He keeps his eyes on the road until his beatpump hammers a little less, and then he stops, hovering within the relative emotional safety of the town.

Nobody's here right now. Most trolls are sleeping, and the humans are at work or eating lunch. So he stands there in the middle of the wide dirt road and stalls, blotting his sleeve against his eyes a few times. He's okay. There's nothing wrong. Here, especially; the houses look pleasant and sturdy and they line the road for a ways, broken apart by the occasional garden or tree. It's really a picturesque neighborhood. Over the roof of the storage hive and Roxy's large house, he can see the chimney of the kiln and even taste a hint of the smoke in the air. There's a flavor to the place, but it's not unpleasant, because flowers line the porches. He breathes it in for a while, trying to ground himself, but his thoughts are still stuck in the past.

He isn't sure if he wants to see someone or to stand there alone without having to explain himself. In a minute, he comes up with a reason; if Gamzee is staying at his house, then he'll have to pick up some more food. There hadn't been anything in his shack, so that solves the mystery of the surplus. What _had_ he been eating?

He stops wondering immediately. Not a good idea.

The storage barn has large, heavy doors that whine on their hinges and take the flat of both palms pressed against them before they move. Karkat leans into them until he can step through into the cavernous belly of the place, listening to the sounds that echo up into the rafters of the angled ceiling. He expects to be alone, and for a second, it feels like he is. The room feels much bigger without the entire town's population poured into it; the chairs sit stacked by the wall, and the dust motes flit undisturbed down from the skylight. In a second, though, he hears a noise through the door to the food closet.

“Hey?” He calls out. Who's awake?

There's another weighted thump and the sound of footsteps, and Terezi appears in the doorframe. She slows, and stops, leaning back in to the wall and drying her hands on a rag, not answering him just yet. Quiet fills the room like the settling dust. Karkat has no idea what to say, and so it stays there undisturbed. His mind goes back to the last time he saw her, when she was leaving this very building in a very sour mood.

She looks better now. Eventually she's willing to break the silence, and makes an offering. “Hey. What's up?”

“Uh.” He looks to the bag in his hand, to his feet, then back at her. He has to say something-- he picks the fairest halves he can make between honest and inoffensive. “Just picking something up after work. You know. For lunch, I guess.”

“Out of food already?” She doesn't sound suspicious, but Karkat sees the corner of her mouth tug up in that way it does when she's thinking. She disappears back into the doorway, and Karkat follows, hovering just beyond the frame. “Well, that's okay. We're getting more in from the woods than ever, now that the snow's gone. _Ugh_.”

Her cane is resting on the inside of the doorway, the bright white eye of the dragon handle feeling somehow judgmental in context. It's still easier to look at then the troll in the room ahead of him.

“So, uh.” He begins, already faltering. “You're not mad at me?”

Terezi scoffs, making a noise with her bottom lip to her top teeth. “Do I look mad at you?”

“I just thought-- I mean, the other night. I thought maybe I should apologize for how things went?”

She stays looking ahead, unphased. “It's okay.”

“No, it's not.” The words are bubbling up out of him like he can't quite stop them from doing it, even though she seems to tense up with every word. “I know it's not really fair, and to be honest I think this whole thing is a mess-- not that it ever fucking isn't-- and I still have no idea what he thinks he's getting out of this. Like, seriously, it's fucked up. I just wanted to make sure you weren't-- or, that I didn't--”

“Karkat?”

His attention perks. “Yeah?”

“I _really_ don't want to talk about that.”

“Oh.”He lets out the tension in a sigh, carding fingers through his hair. He can't stop his thoughts from tangling up in him, but he can at the very fucking least get a grip on his tubespams, and changes the subject. “Yeah. Snow. It sucks. I don't know why we get dumped on a freezing planet, anyway. Did we not have it bad enough already? Is this the final insult before we keel over from hypothermia?”

“It was a human frog,” she shrugs, turning over another sack of potatoes. Karkat guesses she's checking for mold. “So we get whatever their human session spits out. Them's the breaks!”

Karkat sighs; in defeat, mostly. “Yeah. I know.”

She doesn't speak again right away, so he walks a few steps into the storage unit. He's still unsure. How much can he take until it becomes obvious? He eventually settles-- some things off the shelves, a few more potatoes, another head of cabbage-- and a portion of the dried berries and mushrooms from the forest. He grabs one of the wild onions for good measure, thinking maybe he can make soup when he gets home. He'll make it work.

All the while, Terezi works silently behind him. His nerves are working up again, and despite better judgement, he speaks.

“So, why are you awake?”

“Couldn't sleep,” she offers, quite plainly. “I think I might just go diurnal, after all.”

“You too?” He turns to look, watching as she seals the first bag and moves on to the second. “That's you and Tavros now, right?”

“Yep. And I hear Nepeta's working on it. Pulling her first full shift with Jade today, I think.”

“No shit.” He thinks about it, for a while, and decides it makes sense. Four hours isn't enough time to do the jobs those two wanted, anyway, and it's especially complicated when they work with the humans. “I don't think I could do it. I mean-- okay, they won. It doesn't mean we have to _be_ them. We still outnumber them twelve to eight. This is still practically a troll society. And-- that _sun_. I just don't think I could get used to it.” He's talking too fast, but it feels like compulsion. “I keep waking up and going outside thinking It's going to burn. It's weird. The light, you know?”

The corner of her mouth tugs down. “ _No_ , not really.”

He blinks, for a while, until he gets it. “Oh. Fuck. Fuck, wow, I have to be the biggest douchebag in the universe.”

She grins. “Chill out, you doofus.” But her expression hardens after she puts away the second bag of potatoes. “I mean, don't get the wrong idea. You're _definitely_ the biggest douchebag in the universe.”

“Ha _ha_.” At least he's starting to relax. He grips the strap of his bag, now full with what he guesses he could call groceries, and walks back towards the safety of the common hall. “I'm just going to grab some fish from the thermal unit.”

“Wait, pick up some venison instead. Jade came back with _two whole bucks_ this morning, we just cleaned them.” She flashes a row of brilliant, sharp teeth. “Fresh meat.”

“Thanks.” He's about to leave, when he sees the cane on the wall again, and stops. Suddenly he can feel the weight of the necklace in his pocket, and he thinks about it-- about the last time he, or anyone, had seen Aranea Serket. That cane and its owner had a lot to do with it.

He digs it out and turns back to face her, letting it drape from his fingers so the silver shape hangs clearly below his fist. “Hey, Terezi. I wanted to ask you something else?”

“Yeah-” She turns, swipes her tongue against the back of her teeth, and her expression falls. “What is that there?”

It's too small for her to tell this far away. He walks up, lets it fall down into her waiting hand, and watches as she cups it level with her chest and sniffs the air. Her shoulders go stiff, and she tightens her fist about it for a moment before straightening her arm, dropping thing into Karkat's clutches. She flexes her fingers after, as if she'd touched something cursed. “Where did you _find_ that?”

“Out by the fields, in the grass-- like someone had dropped it.” He looks down at the thing, watching it sparkle. “Wait, you mean it's not yours?”

“No.” It's said too firmly to mean just no, like the idea offends her. With a hint of bitterness, she asks, “Have you asked Vriska?” He hadn't considered that, and shakes his head.

“I didn't. I guess I thought-- well, you were there at the end.”

Her jaw stays tight. “I didn't take it. I have no idea why it's here.”

She turns her back to him, but after the next sack goes up with the others she stops, bracing a hand over her eyes. In the quiet he realizes all too late what he's done, and steps closer, like he wants to help.

“Don't,” she warns. “Listen-- Karkat. The reason I'm still up? For real?”

He listens.

“I kind of wanted to be alone. Can you do that for me? Just leave me alone for a bit?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” He pockets the necklace quickly, like hiding it. “I don't know what I was thinking. It was stupid to ask you.” He's still standing there, moment after moment, not knowing how to leave, how to go. “I'm-”

“Just go, please.”

He does, finally. There's nothing else to do but start the long road home, feelings coiling with every step. In the end, he forgets to pick up the venison.

  
  


**That Morning**

Once Karkat is gone far enough he can't see him, Gamzee leaves the house to be sick.

The ache in his stomach had started when he woke up, and is a ball of tight agony now, hot and heavy just below his ribcage. Ignoring it isn't going to work, no matter how noble an effort he'd put into keeping it all down. He makes it all the way to the edge of forest behind the cabin to lean on a tree, rough bark digging into his palm. He can ignore this if he wants to; it's happened to him before. He can get it over with, and he doesn't even have to look. That's what he tells himself when he digs claws back towards his throat.

Breakfast comes up easy enough. It's the two eggs that trouble him, the ones that aren't where they're supposed to be. He shuts his eyes, but he can still feel them, so looking or not looking doesn't help much. In the end he has to remember everything after all, and that's worse than having them stuck in the wrong part of his body to begin with. By the time he stands back up, he's shaking, arm over the lump that remains in his abdomen.

He hadn't told Kanaya. What would she have said? He wraps his arms around himself against the cold air, recalling the dark and the noise and the chaos as he walks to the water pump.

He didn't think it was possible to care about anything that happened to him anymore, and he doesn't know whether or not to be relieved that he was wrong.

The water is fresh, and cold, and it's nice to have it still and deep and not shallow like it is in the stream, full of tiny fish or bugs. Not that he minds the bugs. But it's good to drink it down clean, and quick-- almost purifying. He nearly makes himself sick again before he practices a little restraint, letting his breaths come in steady and deep once again.

Then he's alone in Karkat's yard, with the sun still climbing behind him.

He thinks about going home, but can't convince himself. He must have walked a mile yesterday, at least-- even now his legs resent him, arguing with his balance, hips too full and too painful for him to keep up. He feels like something too small, with something much too big in it.

“Stupid,” he confesses, but there's nobody around to hear.

It doesn't really matter. He walks back through Karkat's vegetable garden, careful not to step on the young spinach, and lets himself back inside where at least there's a door to close, and a furnace warm from cooking breakfast. He can even still smell the food. He stops there at the door for a while, feeling the whole house big and solid around him. He wishes it wasn't, or that nothing was, but there's no other person to be.

He tries to sleep, but there's too much of everything else-- hunger, and pain. But he's used to it. He can close his eyes and pretend it's like before, when there's nothing he can do. Like his body is locked rigid where he lays, something different from himself and very far away. And that gets him through the first hour, then the next, then the next, then the next, until Karkat comes home.

Everything after that gets worse.


	5. Scramble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't exactly the middle of the story, if all goes according to plan, but we are -getting- there. That makes writing a bit harder for me, but hopefully you readers won't suffer for it. Thank you for the responses so far!
> 
> Chapter warnings for; emetphobia, mentions of sexual trauma, and minor reality troubles.

“It's Vriska.”

Terezi sits on the adjacent end of Rose's table, there in the main room of their cabin in the woods. Glass windows in the roof and three walls lets light pour in, and the cups and drying herbs and the golden leafing of books sparkle with it. She can taste the bright points of sunlight every time she breathes air across her tongue, where they fizzle and sting like carbonation.

If Rose is surprised, they don't show it more than a slight raising of their eyes. The cat on their lap mowls, and stretches out its long, black arms, and they pet it consolingly. “Well, go on. I'm listening.”

“I don't know what I expected to happen. I was scared of meeting her again, you know.” Terezi's hands grip her mug of tea, which she hasn't so much as taken a sip of in all of her visit. “I spent so much time thinking about it, I didn't even know what I really felt anymore. I was worried what she was going to say, after what I did. I worried it would be something terrible.”

Rose withholds commentary. “And was it?”

“No!” Terezi's face is contorted that way when faced with an especially difficult problem, and her unseeing eyes fix at a spot on the table. “It's like nothing happened. She just-- it went back to like it was before. 'No hard feelings,' she told me.” Terezi finally lifts her head, but her hands stay tight around her cup. “I murdered her. _No hard feelings_. Can you believe that?”

“From what I understand, murder tends not to be such a controversial topic for her.”

“No,” Terezi agrees, breathing a deep sigh through her nose. She turns her head towards where she smells the greenery of outside, and continues to breathe slow and deep as if to soak it in. “I don't think it even mattered to her. Not like it did to me.”

Rose leans forward to retrieve their cup, and then back again. While petting Mutie, a thought occurs to them. “Hold on.”

“What--”

Terezi has the cat in her own lap in a moment, which she hovers a hand over carefully until Rose nods to confirm it's okay. She pets him, still wary of sharp claws and unpredictable temperaments, but all he does is purr.

“I thought you could use a cat.” Rose explains, and then leans back with their tea. “I have a question.”

“Yeah?”

“Have you tried talking to Kanaya?”

Terezi sighs, and buries her face into a palm. “You mean _now_?”

Rose raises an eyebrow, critically. “Why not? I would think you two had a lot in common.”

“It's not that.” She's still speaking into the pale grey of her hands, shades lighter from the rest of her skin. Rose's palms are the same, just in a human color. “You know what's going on, right?”

Rose pauses, but then seems to realize, and makes a face like the gravity of the situation finally hits her. Terezi shakes her head. “I don't know if _that's_ really it, either. Even before Gamzee-- before _anything_ \-- it was always like we'd picked different sides.”

“On what?”

Terezi shrugs, and twists her mouth. “We have different... opinions? On Vriska. Maybe too different. Kanaya's done with Vriska. But I don't even know where to start.”

“Maybe it's not so different. I've never actually seen you speak to her. There's more to either of you than your relationship with Serket.”

Terezi's face goes a little sheepish, and she pets the cat a few times before she has the nerve to say it. “I'm a little scared to.”

“Why?”

“Because-- she's so. _Meticulous_.All the time. It's almost unbearable. She'll make that face and tell me I'm being stupid. And she's right.” Terezi takes both hands up to cup her face in her palms again, and sighs deeply before she continues. “Is it bad that I want Vriska to be as upset as I am? That I want her to hate me, get mad, _anything_?”

“Like blackrom?”

“ _Not_ like blackrom,” She insists. “I'm just. Guilty, all the time, Rose. I feel like the worst. And every time I see her I feel like I'm about to--”

Terezi stops, lowers her hands, and holds her bottom lip between her teeth. She doesn't say anything for a while, and after the stretch of silence, eventually lowers a hand to pet the cat. Mutie rumbles, thoroughly content.

“I'm sorry,” she says, finally. “I don't know why I'm telling you all this. I shouldn't be taking advantage of casual human pacification, I feel like a total creep.”

Rose's expression softens. “It's fine. I'm not really doing anything but listening.”

They lean forward, and reach under the cat's jaw to scratch his cheeks gently until Mutie works up a deep, rumbling purr. Terezi lets the vibrations be felt up her arm and in her ears, warmly, and thinks she can almost taste them. Something almost too soporific, like warm milk. But it does its job, and the tension fades away, slowly, until she doesn't feel so bad anymore.

“Kanaya's done a lot of growing up. We all have, even you. Try talking to her.”

She doesn't know why she was so afriad. She thinks of those three years spent in the dark without so much as a casual conversation with the only other living girl of her species, and feels, suddenly, a little forlorn.

“Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Rose.” She lifts her head and breathes the air in deeply, trying to make out where the lilac spots of their eyes are so she can meet them. “I mean it.”

Rose smiles knowingly.

***

 

Karkat manages to have his eyes dry again by the time he gets through the door and into the privacy of his own home. He's still a mess of feelings, coiled up like an overdrawn spring, and the emotions hurry him to the table where he can shed the groceries and bag of retrieved belongings. In the panic, he's forgotten how his house is haunted now. It's hard enough to stand there feeling guilty about Terezi, and bitter towards himself, and even harder when he hears a noise above him and remembers he's not alone.

Gamzee comes down the stairs slowly, hovering there on the second step like a wriggler fearing punishment. He seems aware of Karkat's anger, enough to shrink from it, and at the sight of that something mean curdles in his feelings.

He shoots him a sour look, and then turns back to the open room, looking for any kind of distraction. Gamzee's plate and utensils sit where breakfast left them, and in an otherwise spotless hive, it's a stain on his efforts. Karkat picks them up in a fluster, and goes to the kitchen to clean them with the water he'd gathered from morning. He pours it over them and into the sink, which drains out of the house and into the gardens. Anything to steady his hands with while his mind is frantic.

Gamzee remains there in the corner by the stairs, finally daring to let his feet touch the ground floor. He can hear the soft pad of them hit the wood, and then the silence of his hesitation. “Motherfucker, were you to pick up my things maybe?”

The tension breaks. He turns around in a start, and says the first thing that comes to mind. “This is _your_ fault, you know!”

Gamzee goes very still, like an unwound toy. Karkat continues. “Did you _think about this_? You had to know what would happen. You're always sulking around, when _you're_ the one who's bright idea it was.” He tosses the dishrag down into the basin with the plate, reaching for the cutlery. “I _never_ should've agreed to this. Now it's my problem!”

 

 

The next thing he knows, there's a crash that nearly makes him jump out of his skin, and for a moment he expects something to have happened to him. But he's fine, standing intact there in the middle of his kitchen. It's Gamzee that's crumpled now at the foot of the stairs, limbs curled forward to protect himself. For a while he stays still that way, and the only sound is the effort of his breathing.

The moment hangs like a guillotine, and it takes Karkat a second longer to realize what he did. He's holding Gamzee's knife from breakfast in his fist, the blade pointed forward from his curled fingers.

He hadn't meant to. Karkat puts it down on the counter like it's something cursed. “Wait, Gamzee--”

Gamzee lifts his weight up from the floor and braces himself against the wall, retreating slowly. Karkat follows. “I'm sorry. Hold on--”

It's too late. He's back up the stairs in a moment, and Karkat is left there alone with the dirty dishes and the water and the knife. He stands there for a while, trying to feel like anything else but his absolute worst.

If he was tired before, now there's a misery to hang off his exhaustion. Gamzee had volunteered, but he hadn't asked to come here. He's the one that should be asking himself what he's thinking.

He cleans the dishes, first of all. He can't bear to leave them undone. The moment is the last thing he needed in a long day of things slowly pouring onto his psyche, and now he's fuzzy and full of static, with something awful building in his gut. That had been a mistake, and now he's scared of going up there. He's scared he's going to walk upstairs and find something he doesn't want to, either someone that hates him or someone that doesn't. But in a moment, the dishes are clean and the groceries put way, and there's nothing left. He picks up the bag of Gamzee's things, and his own, and trods up the stairs like facing his execution.

Gamzee lays there in the bed. Sometimes how he feels is a mystery, but not now. There's everything about him that gives away his distress, from the look of his eyes to the slight tremor of his breathing. Besides that, he's perfectly still except for his hands, where the claws scrape into eachother. It's a nervous habit, like a purrfiend grooming itself; Karkat's seen him do it a long time ago.

“I'm sorry,” he repeats, approaching the corner of the bed. He lifts his bag off of his shoulders, and hangs it there off the post of the footboard, trying not to look as ashamed as he feels. “It's just that... you would not _believe_ the day I've had. No matter what I do, I keep messing up.”

Gamzee shrinks and looks up in an ambivalent way-- like he could take it or leave it, and that's enough that it deflates some of the feelings in him. It's still too much, and he still feels ridiculous floating hesitantly around his own home, so with a sigh he sits himself on the bed's opposite corner. Gamzee shrinks a few inches away, but otherwise tolerates sharing the space.

“Is, uh.” He looks over his shoulder, searching for words. “Is it it still hurting? Are you feeling okay?”

Gamzee shrugs, jaw tight and eyes cast to the wall while his claws click together. He sits up, drawing his knees as up towards his chest as they will go so that he compacts there between the headboard and the wall. He seems unreal, huddled into himself and tense, and barely aware of anything around him. That same, sad feeling climbs into Karkat's stomach.

“I did get your things,” He thinks to offer.

He rests the bag of belongings there on the sheets in the neutral space, and that gets Gamzee's attention-- his pupils flare and he reaches for it slowly, hesitating just a moment before his claws swipe into it. It's almost like he expected Karkat to take it back.

Once he has it, he rifles through his belongings in a guarded way, not removing anything, and that makes Karkat curious. He pauses long enough for Karkat to suspect something must have disappointed him, so he asks. “Is that everything?”

Gamzee closes it, and sets it aside, and looks out into the window. He's still curled like a pill bug, and his voice rattles like it's full of smaller pieces of itself. “Yeah, brother, it's alright. Thanks.”

“Gamzee?”

He's wary, still. But willing to talk, and finally to make eye contact. “Yeah.”

“Can I ask...” And then he stops, and decides he'll just go through with it. “Why _are_ you doing this? You didn't have to. Nobody made you.”

He rolls his shoulders again. “You needed at for _some_ motherfucker to.”

“No, we didn't.” Karkat insists. He moves to face him. “We could have waited for someone else. Even if we couldn't, I wouldn't have made you do... this.” He gestures to the scrapes that litter Gamzee's skin, and soon he's meeting purple eyes again, and there's something there besides wariness. Something in the air calms.

“Ain't nothing, brother.” Gamzee forces a smile, but it looks almost sarcastic, and pries at a wound with his finger-- purple swells out of the scrape, and Karkat grimaces. “I ain't even to feel such things, so much. Might as well that they go into this kind of a motherfucker's husk.”

Karkat blinks. Gamzee witholds any further explanation.

It's not true, that he doesn't feel them. He does-- every bruise and cut aches like it would in anyone's skin. It's just that they seem to tumble down inside of him into a great chasm of personlessness, something that hurts much worse. They can't escape out of that. There's no way, as it stands, for anyone else to know.

That, and he's been through more.

Part of this, Karkat senses. He waits there for the feeling to pass, and when it doesn't, he sighs, and turns back ahead to rest his head in his hands. What a mess.

“Ain't you always to got some kind of motherfucking weariness in you, brother.”

He's about to ask what that's supposed to mean before Gamzee unfolds into a long mess of limbs, and slowly swings his legs off the bed. Karkat watches as he stands, taking the small satchel of his belongings with him, and starts trodding off back towards the stairs with his same tender gait.

“Wait--”

He does.

“I wasn't going to hurt you,” He insists. “Really.”

Gamzee stands long enough to blink once, and shake his head. In his most matter of fact voice, he corrects him; “Everybody hurts me.”

He leaves without another word. Karkat lets everything out in a long, dizzying sigh, slides out of his shoes, and climbs onto the recuperation slab. It's still warm from the troll that was lying in it.

***

The sheets are in a tangle, which never happens when he uses the bed alone, and he takes a moment to straighten them. It's not exactly cold enough for two blankets, though Gamzee has been wrapped in both of them, so he folds one and sets it away at the foot of the bed. Then, finally, he can let himself fall back down against the pillows, burying his hands beneath them. Some of his heat lingers, and though it's not overpowering, there's the slight odor of another person. He thinks maybe he might even be imagining it.

It's nicer than he expected, and he needed it more than he realized, and the comfort and the daylight is enough to wear him thin. He sighs again, feeling the weight of his symbol in his pocket.

There's noises from the kitchen, and he has enough consciousness left to think he should be worried. But there's not anything left in him like that anymore, so he lets himself drift into much coveted rest and eventually dreams. Dark hallways, and death, and a sweep and a half of darkness, and everything that came after. And more than that; of this scent, and the feeling of another's presence, and hands gently coaxing through his hair and over his back, over and over, soothingly, until he falls asleep.

“ _Karkat_.”

He's still dreaming, and so he reaches a hand out into the emptiness of the bed (the pile) expecting something to be there.

“Karkat?”

He wakes up, and sees Gamzee there sitting on the edge of the bed, and drags himself upright with a groan. He straightens his shirt and blots his mouth against his sleeve, just in case, like he's trying to clean himself of anything pitiable. The panic only lasts for a moment before he catches the scent of food, and when he looks down, there's fish and potatoes.

A plate is being handed to him before he can insist on his “no food in the bed” rule, and he takes it, shuffling himself to sit against the panel to his back. Gamzee moves into the end board at the other side, and Karkat watches him maneuver against the extra weight he cradles in his hips, how there's only so far he can shift comfortably before his face contorts at the exertion. But eventually he settles, and Karkat drops his sympathetic grimace.

It's really not bad. The fish is tender, and the potatoes are smooth, and even though he has to pick through the skin and the scales it tastes better than anything he's ever cooked. He looks up, hesitant, and entirely unsure what to say. “Thanks. You didn't need to do this.” Then, he realizes something else. “You're not eating?”

“Naw. Stomach hurts.”

“I should tell Kanaya. Maybe there's something she can give you.” That reminds him of the roots, so he pauses, after a bite of fish, and sets the plate down on the nightstand.“Wait--”

He gestures to the bag hanging there on the corner, and in a moment Gamzee gets the idea and works his fingers under the strap to give it over. The cloth-wrapped bundle of roots rests there among his other things, and he digs it out to hand it across the bed. Gamzee takes it with curled, slow fingers; the same way he took the staff from yesterday on the road. “Tavros brought these for you, this morning. He says they're good for you.”

Gamzee seems interested, peeling apart the package with care and running his fingers over each clean stem. Karkat tries not to watch, but he sees Gamzee mouth the word a few times before he says it. “Tavros?”

“Yeah.” He doesn't know why he's repeating himself.

He goes back to eating. In the quiet, Gamzee slips one of the pale roots in his mouth, and chews it thoughtfully. Karkat watches until he makes a face, but not much of one, and doesn't move to spit it out or even slow his consumption. “Gross. Tastes to be like motherfucking death all up onto my gustpads, brother.”

“You should eat them anyway. In moderation, I think.” Karkat scoops the last of the potatoes into his mouth, and sets the plate down again. “I mean, he went through the trouble.”

There's reluctance, but that's all there is.

He looks different, somehow, and Karkat realizes it's that he's fixed his facepaint-- the smudges are cleaned up and redone, though it appears to be the only thing about his appearance he's attempted to mend. The cut lip and scratches are crusted, the bruises so dark Karkat can almost feel them aching under his own skin. Gamzee hasn't even cleaned his hair.

He thinks of the miserable place he'd been living in, the low hang of his head. He remembers the way he'd recoiled from the knife like it was real danger. His words still hang there in Karkat's skull, and for a moment he feels uneasy.

“Hey,” he says, finally, and Gamzee looks up only with his eyes. “I'm really sorry I scared you. I mean it, that was a dick move. But this sulking stuff, I mean, that's real. You can't do that. It's my hive, for one. But you haven't even cleaned up your wounds.”

“I'm fine, brother.”

“That's not what I said.” He folds his arms, and Gamzee plucks off another shoot to chew, scowling against the taste. “I said, you've got to take better care of yourself. That's a super official order, here, as the leader and everything. I'll put it in writing if I have to.”

He frowns, and twitches a claw against his knee. “Ain't even do you gotta do that, or nothing else what's motherfucking superficial.”

“ _I'm_ not doing anything. This is on you.” It sounds almost like an excuse, and when Karkat feels the words sit in the air like that, and remembers the kitchen, he feels himself panic. “I, uh--”

“And how are you gonna make at me to do _any_ motherfucking thing, brother?”

He's done it now. Gamzee's expression is dark, when he looks at him. Already he's coiled around his bulging stomach like a wounded animal, and his arms wrap tighter around his knees. There's a look there that's a challenge, maybe, but it's also some sort of indignant revulsion, and pain. But Karkat has an answer.

“By _asking_ you. If you get sick, the grubs could die. We don't want the grubs to die. I don't want you to die, either.”

Gamzee softens, a little, even in his eyes. He doesn't look away. Karkat feels bad for comparing him to something beastly a moment earlier.

“Don't be worrying to such motherfucking things, brother. Not you.” Karkat imagines he could ask what he means, but he doesn't. Gamzee continues to speak. “In a day I'll have at my sorry motherfucking self get huskrid out of your block, and ain't never again should a motherfucker need get spongechitin so full up of its motherfucking discredition as it is, to serve up to me such falsesome motherfucking clemencies.”

“I. Actually.” And the words seem to come directly from his consciousness, without any awareness to interrupt them. They just occur somewhere in the depths of his sentiment, and then there they are in his mouth. “I don't think you should go back there.”

Gamzee looks frightened. He doesn't speak.

“I mean. That makes sense, right?” He pauses, but not long enough for confirmation. “I saw your house, Gamzee. It's a dump-- sorry, but really. It's drafty, and filthy, and small, and _way_ too far from Kanaya's hive. She's practically my closest neighbor, and you're closer to the fields and to town, and I have the space. To be honest? On top of all that, _clearly_ you can't be trusted to handle yourself.”

He wilts and bristles.

“I'm just saying, I. Think you should stay here, for as long as, uh. This. Goes. It's safer.” Karkat gestures, just vaguely enough not to point directly at the roundness of his belly. Gamzee cups a hand over it. “If you really want to so badly, I mean, pack up and be my guest. I'm sure as _hell_ not going to stop you.”

Was that the right thing to say? Karkat doesn't know. He can't believe he's saying it at all. It all poured out of him in a fit of instinct, and in retrospect, he thinks he wouldn't have done it if he'd had more sense. Gamzee sort of squirms a little, while he thinks about it, tracing his claws over the purple scratches on his arms.

“I guess if that's what a motherfucker has all up into his convictions at me.”

“It is.” He tries to _sound_ convinced.

“So that's it?”

“Yeah.” He swallows back the urge to rescind every word. “You'll stay?”

“That's what a motherfucker said at me to do.”

“Good.” Karkat picks up his dish and stands from the bed, desperate for the space.

Work comes and goes that evening, with barely enough sleep, and ended early by threatening clouds that settle in with the darkness of night. On his way home, he feels his own weariness, thinking Gamzee was right. He wonders finally if he shouldn't do like Terezi and the others and make the switch, himself.

***

 

Karkat wakes up in the middle of that evening to darkness and the pound of another rainstorm. For a minute, he still thinks he's alone. It takes a second longer to recognize it was another noise that woke him, and he rights himself to the sound of retching from across the room.

When he lights the lantern, he sees Gamzee is there leaning over the edge of the bed, coughing out the last of where he'd emptied his stomach onto the floor. His legs seem to come under him all of their own, and before he knows what he's doing he's standing to walk to his side, pupils narrowed both in concern and against the new light in his hand. “Gamzee?”

There's a vague groan, while he sits up to wipe his mouth against his wrist-- Karkat cringes, and sets the lantern on the nightstand, easing him back down on his side. The first thing out of the clown's mouth besides the vomit is a weakly muttered “I'm sorry,” as feeble as anything he's ever heard. Karkat's stomach twists over it.

“No, it's alright.” It's the gentlest thing he can think to say. “Is it the grubs? Are you okay?”

Gamzee shakes his head. “Ain't the grubs, brother.”

“Do you think you're going to be sick again?”

He's breathing in deep, like he's trying to steady himself, and finally croaks out the answer. “Probably.”

Karkat frowns. “Hold on.”

At first, he thinks about the water basin. But there'd be no way to sanitize it after, not without tracking it all the way down to the mainhive to boil water. Karkat sighs, slides a palm up to meet his face, and walks over to the corner to one of the storage chests.

Slotted with all of the blankets and clothes and other liveable minutia is a bucket, tucked into the corner of the trunk and hidden under one of the linens. He's already embarrassed, but it's not like there's anything he'd rather use. He carries it back to Gamzee, who is either unphased by it or unwilling to react to anything, thoroughly distracted with his nausea.

“Don't laugh,” he says, setting it on the floor. Gamzee shakes his head, his discomfort obvious.

“I ain't so much in the laughing way.”

“I bet not.” He looks to the mess on the floor, and sighs. “I have to clean this up. Are you okay for a minute? You're not going to die?”

He does laugh then, but it's the same weak noise as before, and he looks like he regrets it immediately. It's a bad enough thing to have to listen to when he looks like that, sick and miserable, and he wants to tell him not to do it again. He withholds the urge, and instead looks to the floor. Karkat isn't exactly impressed, but all he can do is drop his shoulders and let out a breath. He guesses that's that.

It's gross, but it's not much grosser than skinning rabbits. With a few towels and some effort, the floor is passable at least until morning. Gamzee stays there lying along the side of the bed, hand resting against the pail as if to ground it in space while he fights back the nausea. He makes pained sounds, occasionally, and Karkat knows he can't just go back to sleep.

He pulls up a chair to the foot and sits just far enough away that he can't reach out and touch Gamzee, not even if he wants to. He has just enough time to wonder if he shouldn't have given him the package of roots, when he's sputtering again, and in between the noises comes a long whine.

“Thought I got all of these.”

Karkat's eyebrows lower, because something about that sounds ominous. “What?”

Gamzee doesn't have time to respond, because he's heaving again, and Karkat strategically looks away. It's not until he's worried that Gamzee is choking does he bother to look back, in time to watch him spit something firm and round into the pail. He hangs there for a moment, breathing deep, and finally settles back to bed in a shudder. As if in a trance, Karkat hands him one of the clean towels to dry with.

He sits back down in the chair, and watches as calm finds its way back down into Gamzee's trembling husk. Eventually he's well enough that he can sit up properly, and he does, and Karkat waits until he can meet Gamzee's eyes to speak. There's something there that's fearful and reserved, like he's been caught.

“What the hell _was_ that?”

Gamzee wipes his mouth on his arm again, but seeing Karkat's disdain, instead picks up the towel. He doesn't answer right away-- Karkat has to spend an agonizing moment watching his bony hands twist into the fabric, his eyes shifting around.

“Drones.” He finally explains. “Some motherfucking impatient ninjas they were, on a brother. Ain't was like they knew one end from another.”

It takes him a while to put that together. But when he does, it hits him right in the pit of his stomach-- an instant, sinking feeling that makes him afraid and a little queasy. “Oh my god.”

“Ain't a thing, really. Swallowed a set of keys once. That was worse. Those tore me up some really good.”

It's delivered almost like it intends to be a joke, but Karkat isn't laughing. He waits until the sort of sly tone fades from Gamzee's voice completely, and he goes back to looking vaguely hollowed and unwell. His original confession fills the air and makes it thick, and suddenly Karkat is all too aware of the emptiness of his own mouth. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Nothing was. There's no words to say, nothing good enough. Just air, that he keeps breathing in and out in slow, controlled breaths, watching Gamzee shiver on the bedside.

Eventually he adjusts the bucket away, returning his arms to hold tight around his middle while he waits. “I'm done, motherfucker. Ain't nothing left what ain't supposed to be.”

Karkat nods and stands to pluck it up by the handle from the floor, and makes his way outside to dump it. Even though the rain still pours around him, he takes his time, lingering in the darkness of a storm-dim night. The stars aren't even out, though the moon glows from behind the clouds.

It's gross, but he's curious. He can't see well in the dark or the weather, but the egg is small enough to almost close in a fist, and slightly uneven on its surface. There's no telling the color, though Kanaya had said they would all start out jade. He imagines that there's fifteen of them inside the troll in his house, and that seems almost impossible. He finds some spot out of the way in the brambles, and leaves the freshly upturned thing outside to avoid the smell. It's not like anyone else will come around to be scandalized by it.

When Karkat gets back, Gamzee is there lying on his back in a pile of messy sheets, caught between the blue light of the window and the orange of the lantern. He comes up to the footer and leans there against it, both hands folded over the wooden frame. “Are you okay? Can I do anything?”

Gamzee doesn't answer, not just yet. He seems too thin and sunken to really be a troll; he more closely resembles a doll. Kakat frowns.

“I have to go get Kanaya. She should know.”

That gets his attention. He looks up, eyes wider than they aught to be. “Motherfucker, please don't be to tell her about it.”

“I have to tell her you threw up. Gamzee, what if those things make you sick? What if they're _poison_ or something? I'm worried. I want her to come check you out.”

He pouts about it, sure. But Karkat's already made his decision, and in another few minutes he's out the door with his cloak about his shoulders. Gamzee remains safely tucked into bed. The rain settles into a light drizzle, but it's enough to slick the road so that mud clings to his boots as he walks.

He thinks about whether or not Kanaya did anything to prevent what had happened. He wonders if it would have been right to expect her to, or to know, or if there's any blame to give to anyone. Maybe not. He feels, somehow, that it wouldn't have happened to anyone else, and that's something he chalks up to the great unfairness of the universe.

Kanaya isn't necessarily overwhelmed to see him in the dead of night, but she's nothing but attentive once he begins to describe the problem. He feels bad for suspecting her of negligence, because she has her coat in a second and returns with him back to his hive at a jog, not a walk. It feels like no time at all until she's unpacking her bag of supplies onto the table, and asking him to bring Gamzee downstairs.

He does.

Soon they're all sitting by the table while Kanaya does her examination. Karkat watches through the dim light of both of the house's lanterns, stomach tense while he keeps his secret behind his teeth. She checks Gamzee's tongue, his pupils, kneels down while he sits in the chair to test the pads of her fingers against his swollen stomach, prodding gently. For all purposes, he's a model patient, though his discontent is obvious.

“Did he have a fever?”

“No,” Karkat answers.

“No dizziness, cramping, or blood? And it was only twice?”

He shakes his head again. “There wasn't much. He hasn't been eating a lot.”

“That won't do. Can you make him something?”

In the middle of the night, he would think to ask why it was so urgent if he didn't trust her. But he does, and the last thing he wants to do is endanger the grubs. It'd be the last thing on a long list of major damage he'd done already, so he lets himself out into the kitchen and starts on soup. It'll be easy for him, he thinks, imagining for a brief moment what Gamzee had said about keys.

He glances backwards occasionally to watch what she does. Kanaya stands to walk behind Gamzee, angling his chair to face away from her. “Arms on the dining table, please. Palms down.”

He seems reluctant, but complies. She reaches forward and seeks the bottom curve of his ribs with the ends of her fingers, curling them towards her so that they press lightly into Gamzee's stomach. He appears uncomfortable, but there's hardly more than a twitch out of him.

“Breathe in, please.”

He does, and also out, when she says so. She keeps pressing lightly along under his thorax and Karkat watches, between working at the stove; Gamzee squirms a bit, but it's not until she leans over him that he can be heard growling faintly. “Any pain or nausea?”

“Only when I look at your nugbone, sister.”

She pinches his stomach in retort and he jumps, scowling after her as she glides away. He's wound his arms tightly about himself by the time he feels sufficiently excused to, and his demeanor doesn't improve until she's withdrawn entirely into the kitchen, where Karkat chops vegetables into broth. Almost as if the discussion is private, she leans in towards Karkat to speak.

“He seems fine. It must have been something he ate.”

That fills him with a sudden pang of dread, which from how she reacts, must have been visible on his face.

Gamzee eats a surprising amount without foreign objects impeding his hunger, and manages two large bowls of soup before he refuses the third. It makes him think like this is what they should have done from the start, maybe. A warm meal, and questions, and gentle prodding. He can't tell how much benefit it is for him, or for the things in him, but for the moment there's no difference.

In a while, Gamzee, complaining of tiredness, excuses himself upstairs. Karkat is sure he simply wants to avoid Kanaya-- as if taking the hint, she's packing her things to go. Karkat follows her just outside the door, and asks her something.

“I've been thinking about it. How they hurt him.”

She stops there on his porch, looking at him through the clear night air. The rain had all but stopped sometime after they arrived, and outside, the world had that wet, earthy smell. He breathes it in now before he speaks.

“Could you have done it-- some other way?” Without saying so, he knows he's asking if she could have, or would have done it, herself. Karkat can't imagine that. For whatever reason, it doesn't seem right, not that any of this seems right to him. “It had to be like this, right? Somebody had to do it?”

“I'm afraid so.” She answers him. “The drones won't touch me. To them, I'm not a viable host. Even if I wasn't jade, I suspect.”

He doesn't understand until she points to a bared fang for demonstration, and that's when two and two come together. She's not technically alive, or a troll, anymore.

“They either see me as their royalty on par with the mother grub, or as something else entirely. Either way, I was always going to have to depend on some other individual's generosity.” She looks back into the house, with an expression he can't read. “Unfortunately.”

He nods, a little. He guesses that's right. “I thought it was something like that. I guess I just... regret how it worked out.”

She seems to understand, but not enough to want to discuss it further. “I know it's been difficult for you. Thank you for calling me. But I promise you he's okay. You can sleep easy, for now.”

It's the best idea he's heard all day.

***

When he finally ascends the stairs, it feels like it's been a hundred years since morning. The day that he brought Gamzee back here from the caverns seems a lifetime ago, and having him here now isn't strange anymore. Uncomfortable, maybe. There had been something about him when he was far away, when he'd only seen him in glimpses, that let him keep imagining there'd be time for something to change. He hadn't known what he was hoping for; maybe that he would feel differently, or that eventually he wouldn't feel anything at all.

When he sees Gamzee lying there in the bed again, there's a sense of distance even now. Something uncrossable. With a stomach full of soup and somewhere to stay, maybe he's happy. Maybe he's not. Karkat can't tell a thing from how he stares out the window, watching what he can of the outside.

He speaks, finally. “Karkat?”

“Yeah?”

There's a pause, and Gamzee sucks a lip between his teeth. “Is this real?”

 _Is this real_? He doesn't understand the question even a little, so he asks. “What do you mean, real?”

“Is this the real way things motherfucking go, or am I getting into myself some kind of dishonesty at thinking so?”

He still doesn't get it, but at least it's easy to answer. “Yeah, this is real. A real _pain_.” Karkat isn't confident about what he does next, but he does it anyway, coming up to pat Gamzee's foot with a sigh. The clown flinches, but not by much.

“Alright,” he says, as if making a deliberate choice. “Alright then, brother.” And with that, he seems to be consoled.

Long enough, at least, for Karkat to sit on the edge of the bed. He's dreading the wooden floor as much as he hates the current stiffness already at home in his back and shoulders, stretching both arms and rubbing fingers into the muscle of his neck. He'd accidentally slept with his binder on that afternoon, which had since been removed after Kanaya's departure. The ache remains in his ribs, and the events of the day hang from him like an iron blanket. And the bed feels so much better now, so for the moment, he'll take what he can get.

“Can I ask at you another motherfucking thing?”

“Yeah.”

“What was it like to die?”

He makes a face. It's a weird enough question that he could refuse to answer, but it's late, and quiet, and there's already a precedence to the evening for asking weird questions.

“It sucked. And it hurt. I was scared out of my mind.” He places his open hand carefully over the spot in his middle, where there aren't even the faintest marks that remain from the fork. That had been taken care of, apparently, by the game mechanics themselves, whatever line of code existed within the powers of Jane's god tier. “She got me right in the pump biscuit. I felt it like-- compress, too much. And then everything kind of... slowed down. I was panicking, but, there was hardly any time before it was all over. At least it was quick.”

He doesn't mention how sometimes he starts awake with a jolt and with a cold feeling, the same one that anticipates the rest of a blade, reaching out into the dark to find nothing else there. “I _really_ don't recommend it.”

It's bad enough he's telling him all of this, as it is, but somehow he doesn't feel the needed restraint. There was a time, however brief, that he would have told him everything.

“You tired, motherfucker?”

He's _so_ tired, and his body so upset with him, and worn so thin by the hours and the lack of sleep that he spends a long moment debating his next decision. But in the end, he doesn't care enough to guess himself. “Move over a little,” he says, shooing Gamzee gently.

He blinks, but complies, shifting closer to the wall. Karkat kicks off his shoes and lays there in a collapsing heap on his half of the newly shared bed, mind and pump biscuit a mess of bright, rapid conflicts. He breathes out a sigh and imagines the lot of them dissolving there to meet with the rest of the dust, how the moonlight gathers it up into sparkling blocks. He realizes from this vantage point what Gamzee had been watching earlier.

“You're okay if I stay here?” He thinks to ask-- and he shouldn't have to, really, because it's his bed. But he asks all the same, and Gamzee nods.

“Ain't like this is being a new thing.”

He's right. It's not.

Karkat lets the day end there, lying to face the rest of the room, giving Gamzee his back. For a long time he knows they face in opposite directions, lying carefully still and trying not to move. It's different, still. It's not what it was, certainly. Even when Gamzee eventually turns around, his long body at a matching but distant curve. But it's okay. And certainly not new.

“Hey.”

He hears Gamzee shift behind him.

“Thanks for not puking on the sheets.”

He hears a gentle scoff, one that sounds almost disbelieving. But after that, it's quiet, and comfortable enough that Karkat doesn't feel particularly upset about watching the squares of moonlight on the floor, and the dust in them, until the day finally ends.


	6. Rat Teeth

   
It takes another day for Terezi to find herself standing on Kanaya's porch. It juts off the side of a wide, single-story house nestled just within the edge of the woods, under the dappled shade of the trees and a peaceful distance from town. It's cooler here than it had been walking in the sun, and the air is pleasantly heavy with the scent of trees and plants.  
   
She's trying to raise her fist and knock, but not even the ideal scenery relieves the knot in her stomach.  
   
 _This is stupid_ , she thinks, gripping her cane tightly in the other hand. _You've done much worse._  
   
That's a thought that leaves her cold, but it does allow her to lift her knuckles to the wood with a stony expression. She knocks twice, and waits, deciding she'll turn to breathe in the scent of the fields in order to appear slightly more nonchalant about the whole thing. They smell good, anyway-- fresh from last night's rain, and a bright dessert lime under the sunlight.  
   
But it doesn't open. Instead she hears an exchange of murmuring from inside, and finally Kanaya's voice lifting high enough to make it through the door. “It's open, go ahead.”  
   
She can't very well run away _now_. Terezi lets herself inside.  
   
The colors are much warmer, and darker, meteor-salvaged rugs on the floor and draping fabric that colors the skylight. It sits in her mouth like chocolate, and earth, and in her nervousness, a bit like rust and spoiled grubpaste. There's a distinct lack of Kanaya's usual dramaticism in the interior design, but she suspects that comes only from an absence of resources.  
   
Inside, Jade stands on a short stool set in the center of the living block. Kanaya is taking measurements and sticking pins into a great white swath of fabric that wraps over the human girl's torso, and looks up just long enough to recognize her visitor. There's a moment of awkwardness, a kind of unspoken hesitance about the event in the barn three nights ago. Though it doesn't make any difference to her, Terezi turns her head away politely.  
   
Jade, either unaware of or unwilling to react to the tension, smiles warmly. “Hey! How's it going?”  
   
“It's alright.” That's an honest answer as any. “I just wanted to say hi. Is this a bad time?”  
   
“It'll be just a minute,” Kanaya reassures her, turning back to her work. “I'm just seeing if this pattern is right-- I think you could use some more room in the arms.”  
   
Jade twists her upper half to display the row of pins closing the fabric to her side. They're small, but Terezi can smell them in the bright red line of dots they make across her ribs. “Check it out! Kanaya and I are working on a leather jacket. So the brambles stop tearing holes in all of my shirts.”  
   
“That's great.” She doesn't mean to sound disinterested, and to her relief, her voice comes out sounding almost normal. Jade is nice-- a bit of a stranger, still, but with her job keeping inventory they talk often. She has a particular disdain for bullshit, something Terezi is very fond of. It would be awful to make her feel bad.  
   
But the mood is unspoiled, and Kanaya goes back to drawing one last line in the fabric over the curve of Jade's shoulder.  
   
“You can wait anywhere you'd like.”  
   
She nods, and decides to wander further into the house to get some space.  
   
Beyond the entry block, a hallway cuts the hive in half, opening on the left into a sizable kitchen. To the right, it leads towards the bedroom. There's evidence everywhere of projects and busywork, though it stays at least somewhat organized on the surfaces it occupies. Still, Terezi twists up a lip as she sets foot on to the kitchen's stone-tile floor. Leatherworking tools seem more common than anything that could be potentially used to make food-- the materials themselves sprawl over eachother or sit in careful piles. There's so much _brown_.  
   
Kanaya's house is one of the more complex models, built later than the rest, better planned and better furnished. There's even a water pump here in the kitchen, the closest thing anyone anywhere has to indoor plumbing besides the workshops. It wasn't an accident-- most of the niceties were either made herself, or given in exchange for the tireless work she'd been doing for the community.  
   
Tireless, literally. Terezi knows as well as anyone that Kanaya doesn't need to sleep anymore, at least not at the level of a normal troll-- something about the vampirism removed the need, or the urge, or both entirely.  
   
Two sliding doors rest on the opposite side, slightly ajar, and through them she can detect the slightest hint of something vivid and floral. Curious, she coaxes her cane through the gap and pushes them apart with her hands, the wood solid in her grip as the doors slide easily through their well-set grooves. Beyond that, at first, there's a bright mess of pastels and greens, like taking a mouthful of a candy necklace, and Terezi swallows against the tang of it. But with a few strokes of her tongue to her teeth, her palate cleanses, and she can tell the groups of flowers from another. It's wonderful-- tall lilacs climb in swathes of purple over gently pink peony bushes, and the shade of young saplings dapples over a cover of pansies, which are bright and sugary-sour. There's other flowers, ones she doesn't know the name of.  
   
There's enough flowers to stuff the fenced garden from end to end, and just beyond that tall maples and aspens crowd the property, letting just enough sun onto the earth below. It's a mess of sweet colors that eventually settle back into the same light, floral aroma in the air once the association is made. She's grinning, she finds, as she stands there letting it fill her nose.  
   
There's a bench there to her right on the back porch, and she chooses to wait here until Kanaya is finished.  
   
It doesn't take long. Soon she's stepping out into the back yard through the kitchen, drying her hands on a rag that she rests on the porch rail. She leans there, her back to the garden, and her tall, shadowed posture makes a striking silhouette. Kanaya has always been like that-- large and shapely and vaguely frightening in the way troll women always were in movies and propoganda. She wonders, briefly, if they had both needed the pills after first pupation, or if there was any other girl who had needed the white capsules to grow into the shape of her hips and rumblespheres. But that's not what she's come here to ask.  
   
Before Kanaya can speak, Terezi asks through a bright smile; “Did you do all of this?”  
   
“I had help,” Kanaya answers, looking over her shoulder. “Jade is a talented gardener, and Rose helped me select the species for cultivation.”  
   
“It's _wonderful_. I don't think I've tasted so many colors at once.”  
   
Kanaya smiles, which would be hard to tell in the shadows without the bright gleam of her fangs. She looks down, not exactly bashfully, but properly humble. “Well, I've had a lot of time. It'll be in bloom like this all summer.” And then, after a moment's deliberate hesitation; “Did you want something?”  
   
Terezi lets the grin fade from her face, and settles her hands over the top of her cane. Sensing the gravity of the situation, Kanaya slowly crosses the distance and places herself at the other side of the bench in a gesture of solidarity. They sit there in silence for a while, until Terezi takes in another deep breath of the flowers, and sighs it out.

  
   
“Have you-- talked to Vriska, much?”  
   
Kanaya looks over, not waiting for Terezi to look back before she answers. “No. To be honest, it hadn't really occurred to me.”  
   
She chews her lip, thinking it over. It's hard to ask what she means without being misunderstood, and when it comes out, it still only tastes half-right. “You mean you didn't _want_ to.”  
   
Kanaya realizes she's been seen though. In resignation, she picks her claws into the hem of her layered skirt. “No, that's right. I didn't want to.”  
   
“Why not?”  
   
“It's strange that you're asking.” It's a response, but not an answer, and when Kanaya realizes that too she lets out a little sigh, and settles her hands. “It's not that there's any lingering resentment, necessarily. It's just that I've already made all of the necessary mistakes with her.” She turns again, and this time Terezi meets her eyes, finding the spots of bright yellow. “What is this about? Did she say something to you?”  
   
“No. She didn't _have_ to. You remember how messed up I was. Whenever that blueberry smell curls up in my nose I just feel this--” She pauses, holds her cupped hand under her solar plexus and moves it a few times, to suggest a weight. “Like something-- like something is going to come out. Something terrible. She's not even doing anything really _bad_ , just-- being _her_.”  
   
Kanaya doesn't speak, about that.  
   
“Rose said I should talk to you,” Terezi confesses. “And-- you know what it's like, probably, when she says something. I thought, you know her, too. Can I ask you something? Somethings, maybe?”  
   
“Of course.”  
   
“Good.” Still, she fidgets again before speaking, turning her cane around under her palm and smelling the cherry-cream of its colors. The scent always comforted her, despite everything.  
   
“The moirallegance, in the end-- why did you break it?” She feels those words on her tongue, and decides they're misshapen somehow, and tries to append them. “No, that's not right. Or-- why did you end it _then_. Why did you start at all? God, I don't know what I'm trying to say.”  
   
She expects Kanaya to wait until the question is easier to ask, but there's a quiet thoughtfulness to her now, and a sternness to her expression. It's as if she's dealing with something very objective, with the same sterile gaze of a general over her war console. Terezi marvels at it, for a second, until she has her answer in part.  
   
“I thought I was doing the right thing, at the time.”  
   
“And _were_ you?”  
   
“Maybe,” she says, as if admitting something. And then, with a heavy voice, she confesses, “But not in the right way.”  
   
That answer doesn't make sense to her immediately. Even now, she's not sure if what Vriska really needed was a moirail. She's not sure what it would have taken-- if anything could have really made a difference, in the end-- but there's a sort of determination in Kanaya's voice that makes doubt impossible.  
   
She looks over, and they meet eyes again. “I'm sorry about how things turned out.”  
   
Terezi scoffs. “ _You're_ sorry? I killed her. How do you think I feel?”  
   
“That's not what I mean.”  
   
Her indignation catches in her throat, and she listens while Kanaya works on another set of words. “Vriska always had options. I'm sorry you didn't. You shouldn't have been the one to do it.”  
   
“I was the only one that _could_ do it,” she corrects, watching Kanaya swallow back guilt. It's a familiar thing to watch, and she feels something stir there in her gut that isn't malice. “And saying it like that doesn't really do any good for me now, anyway.”  
   
“I know.”  
   
It's so hard to speak. Everything seems to get trapped in the gate of her teeth, and in the end, Terezi gives up with a groan and leans back against the support of the bench, letting her head sit to the wood and her cane rest on her lap. She can just sit here, and smell the flowers, and try not to feel so terrible.  
   
“It's not fair. It's such a nice day, I shouldn't feel like absolute shit.”  
   
Kanaya reaches over to pat her knee, and the touch is kind of startling, but not unwelcome. “You know that you don't have to be responsible for her.”  
   
“She's my friend, though.” Terezi mutters. “I feel terrible.”  
   
“You're allowed _not_ to.”  
   
It's a simple answer, and it makes her uncomfortable, somehow. It feels small and sharp and rests there in her stomach, where her thoughts wrap around it over and over.  
   
In time, she eventually leaves the garden, and Kanaya comes along to see her off. They're exchanging goodbyes at the door when Kanaya stops her, holding her still to fuss carefully at the bottom of her sleeve.  
   
“Hold on, you have a string coming loose. Let me get that.”  
  
“No, it's really—” but before she can finish, Kanaya is already there with a small pair of scissors, leaning over to fuss. Her hands are very careful and precise, the entirety of her jadeblooded height bent almost comically to properly reach. Terezi stays there for a moment, transfixed, and calmed, by how she sets the thread back into a knot, before it could unwravel any further.  
   
“There.” Kanaya smiles, looking pleased with herself. “Now you're set.”  
   
There's a flush of something that goes through her then, and her cheeks color, and Kanaya must notice from how her smile fades. It's not bad, though. Not entirely.  
   
Terezi excuses herself all the same, and heads out in to the sunshine feeling a little better.  
 

***

 

  
When he wakes up, the sky is already bright and blue. The daylight fills the room in exactly the way the cloud-covered darkness of last night hadn't, and it's a relief to know it won't rain while he has to do the laundry. Still, he meets the concept of morning with reluctance. He's tired, and a little sore, and the bed is too much of a comfort to want to move.  
   
Then he remembers why he's here, and almost as if he needs confirmation, Karkat sits up to turn and look to his right.  
   
Gamzee lays there sleeping in a patch of morning sunlight, completely unchanged in his posture and showing no signs of waking. Still, Karkat's hand floats up slowly to his own chest, pressing flat to the soft barrier of his sweater. No new parts missing.  
   
He remembers what Kanaya said about the threat of dismemberment. Last night, with Gamzee miserable and puking and egg-sick, the idea hadn't even occurred to him, and it seems just as strange now. Something here doesn't make _sense_ , and the longer he watches him now the longer he feels it's true. The same sort of wrongness that's been a part of everything since he'd opened that door rests heavy in his insides.  
   
Gamzee's forearms are held up to guard his face, his knees slightly forward and curved around the swell of his stomach. When he sees that, his pan spins for a minute. It's actually happening, he realizes-- there's really going to be grubs, and then _wigglers_ , in a few months. The inevitability of that swell in him and the coming responsibilities are a little frightening, and he tries to ignore it.  
   
Despite that, it looks exactly like it might have if he was resting on the horn pile all of those sweeps ago. He can remember clearly as ever how he used to lay himself down at Gamzee's side with a heavy groan, and be brought up against his chest where the clown would purr sweetly, cupping his spidery hands to Karkat's full cheeks.  
   
“ _It's okay, brother, let me get fixed to you.”_ He would rattle out, with a voice like syrup. _“Come tell at to me all unwell things, we'll get a motherfucker sorted proper.”_  
   
Though Karkat feels worse remembering, it had worked every time.  
   
Now it's been nearly two sweeps since they'd had a real conversation. He's not counting the tense exchanges between their arrival and now. It's too tiring to imagine.

  


   
He lays back down, across the bed from him. From here he can see the white swath of Gamzee's painted cheek, and the sun trapped in the bright curls of his messy hair, and the bruises that eat away under his skin. Karkat sighs, and when he does, his breath stirs one of the tangles by Gamzee's throat. He's so close, and solid, when before he felt like a ghost. There was even a point he'd imagined him as dead, and when he'd been gone all that time, it had been easy to do. It had almost been a relief, he remembers guiltily. But now...  
   
Now, this is better. Even full of eggs, It's better than having him be a mystery, something that only really existed in speculation. It's better than wondering. It's even better than not thinking about him at all, which he'd done successfully for some time. Something twists, suddenly and very horribly, in his beatpump.  
   
Before he knows what he's doing, his hand lifts to reach for him. He lets his knuckles brush, as carefully as he can, just from under the hollow of Gamzee's cheekbone down to the corner of his chin, slow and practiced. He does it once more, then slowly lets his fist open, laying his hand there against Gamzee's prone jawline. He doesn't stir, not even as Karkat traces the shape of the gray stripe beneath his eye with his thumb. His paint is properly sealed, but the texture is still different from skin, somehow less soft. The ache in his thorax cavern dissipates, slightly, but then it's much worse.  
   
In a moment, he seems to become aware of himself again, and pulls himself away. He rubs his fingers in and out of a closed fist, and stares ahead like a gallopfiend in scuttleglare before he finally gets out of the bed. He has work to do.  
   
By the time he's downstairs and getting ready for chores, he's almost managed to convince himself it didn't happen-- that he _didn't_ reach out to pap his ex in his sleep like some sort of pale-hungry barbarian. That's a bad idea on the top of a _list_ of bad ideas, an extensive one that goes on almost forever in Karkat's mind without finding anything more impressively stupid. He wouldn't have done that, not even in the most estranged depths of his incompetence. There's so many reasons _not_ to. He's sure that he didn't, but still can't quite get the memory out of his head.  
   
At least there's other things to focus on, and when Gamzee finally appears at the foot of the stairs, he manages to look and sound normal when he speaks. “Hey. Are you feeling better?”  
   
“Better as than what a motherfucker could be put expectations for,” he mutters, rubbing the sleep from his eyes into his palm. Karkat finds the news actually causes him relief, and turns away to pick up a bundle of hygenic supplies from the table.  
   
“Good. You're taking a bath.”  
   
He's just woken up, so he still looks at him through heavy eyes and a sort of reluctant half-awareness, but he gets the idea enough to look a little surprised. When Karkat shoves the basin and towel into his arms, he blinks a few times, and offers a gentle protest.  
   
“I ain't thinking so much that I got the motherfucking eagerness to.”  
   
“If you're sleeping in my bed, you're going to keep yourself clean. That's the deal.” He's firm, but the look in Gamzee's eyes is a little wounded, so he softens a bit. “There's some water heated up in the kitchen, it should be warm enough. And get your hair, too. You've got blood in it.”  
   
He takes a crusted strand into his clawed fingers and twists it, rubbing away the flakes. “I figure it's mud, brother.”  
   
“It's both. Go sort yourself out.”  
   
In a moment of unease, he caves, and Karkat can see from his face that he's about to comply. But there's more hesitance there, and he understands what it is when Gamzee starts looking around the room like a cornered plague creature.  
   
“Behind the house, that's where I do mine. Don't give me that look-- nobody comes around here, okay? The sun is out already, it's warm. You'll be fine.”  
   
Gamzee's face drops to almost incredulous disapproval, and he makes his way into the kitchen with a sneer of his lip. “Well ain't _that_ motherfuckin consolation.”  
   
He plucks the kettle up into his grip and rests it in the empty thing there with the towels, and makes his way through the door with the whole thing balanced on his hip. There's a moment there when he steps into the sun that he looks almost mundane, but then it's gone when the door shuts after him. Karkat breathes a sigh of relief, and goes to get the clotheslines from his trunk by the wall.  
   
When he emerges with armfuls of pins and laundry, Gamzee is still making his way around the corner, and sends an accusing look back over his shoulder. “What the motherfuck at are you following me for?”  
   
He scowls back, and hefts up the laundry in demonstration. “I'm not _following_ you, alright? Calm down.”  
   
It doesn't seem to do any good, because Gamzee shakes his head and continues on with a middle-finger salute in response. Karkat lets himself come to a complete stop just to get the full effect of a dramatic, frustrated sigh, and waits until he's finally turned the corner out of sight. And then a little longer, before he walks to stuff the clothes into the washing barrel by the wall, and gets to work.  
   
It's not a complicated process, just a long one, which probably makes it his least unfavorite of the chores. Water is heated over the pit fire, prepared during his depressing self-evaluations. The clothes, water and grated flakes of the soap Sollux and Roxy make all go together in the washing barrel, with a ribbed glass core and a stick to manipulate the clothes with, so he doesn't burn his hands. Once clean, water gets poured out over the earth by the pump, the heating basin is refilled with cold, clean water from the earth, and they all get rinsed out before hanging to dry. It'll take at least until the afternoon. A pain, maybe, but with the consolation that everybody else spends their days off doing the exact same thing.  
   
It was all very responsible and sustainable, if not a little gross to think about how the water that cleans away the dirt and sweat could potentially be the same stuff that comes out of the pump the next week, if not filtered through the layers of ash and gravel that had been buried with the mechanism. Dirk was confident the water tables here moved from the hills down into the river, and that in the scheme of things, it was negligible. That was enough of a consolation to him that Karkat was happy not to think about it anymore. He had bigger problems-- plenty of them.  
   
The weather, at least, is in compliance. The sun is out and drying the earth from the previous night's rain, and it leaves the air sort of thick and steamy in an encouraging way, like it might actually be pleasantly hot out by evening. It's the first of two days he has away from work, and he decides he'd better spend them lying down somewhere decomposing the horror of his existence. It's the least he deserves, but a little sunshine wouldn't hurt.  
   
It's not until he starts to hang the clothes he wore yesterday that he remembers he never took the necklace out of his pocket.  
   
After the problems of last night he'd completely forgotten about it. But something about losing track of it now feels wrong, remembering how Terezi had reacted, and without knowing where it came from to begin with. He feels responsible for it, some sort of obligation to how his symbol rests there in matching curves.  
   
He digs around in the pockets for a while, turning up nothing, and eventually figures it must have fallen out in the barrel. But checking there is no good, nor is it lying on the rocks or anywhere out in the grass under where the clothes hang. He's rifling through the rest of the wet clothes, figuring that's the last place it could be, when he sees Dave standing over by the road.  
   
Standing isn't really accurate-- he's leaning on a tree and looking out into the woods like he's here on accident, and that enough causes Karkat to stop what he's doing. He drops the wet shirt he'd been holding back in the bucket, dries his arms on his pants, and tugs back down the sleeves of his sweater before he walks to meet him. Thinking of the clown in his backyard, he gets a little nervous, and folds his arms to make a show of discontent. “Are you seriously standing there trying to look _casual_? This is the only house for acres, Strider, what do you want.”  
   
“Chill out, man, I'm here on important business.” He tilts his shades down to make eye contact, but Karkat rolls his own to avoid them. “I have a question. You, in two months from now. Where are you?”  
   
“Here, at my house? Where I live?”  
   
Dave points at him, and makes an infuriating clicking noise with his tongue. “Wrong. You're going to be at a shin-dig we're throwing for Tavros. For his weird alien birthday thing, you know the one.”  
   
“And you're inviting me two months in advance. That doesn't seem even a little excessive? Or are you just trying to bother me. God, why am I asking, of course you are.”  
   
“Hey, have you ever _thrown_ a party? Do aliens even do parties? I think I know how early I should tell the de facto mayor in advance when I'm about to throw an absolutely wild get-together. Fair warning, things could get out of hand. I'm being responsible.”  
   
It's true that Tavros, the last to turn 9, has his next upcoming wriggling anniversary. And that there hadn't been any kind of celebrations yet of any sort; the concerns for survival in their budding utopia had been too immediate. But it would be the first time Karkat knew anybody to celebrate _wriggling._  
   
“Trolls don't have wriggling day _shin-digs_ , Dave. We're not hardly so fucking primitive to wallow in our own decay like that. Wriggling Days are exclusively designated for reflecting on one's own shortcomings. You're supposed to spend them imagining ways you can be less of a burden to the empire, or filling out your cull application.”  
   
Dave's expression dims. “If you're being real right now, that is the most depressing shit I've ever heard.” It doesn't stop him, though; he pushes his glasses back up and continues. “Look, I know your culture has problems with fun, but Aradia thought it would be great, and who am I to crush some adorable fairy-lady's dreams about doing something nice for a friend, you know? Nobody, that's who. We're doing it. It's happening. Come if you want to.”  
   
He has a point, Karkat decides-- namely that it would be a douchebag thing to reject going on the principles of a dead world, and if it was Aradia's idea... “Would Tavros even _want_ me there?”  
   
He can see Dave blink, even through the tint of the glasses. “Dude, it's Tavros. If you're thinking of somebody that’s gonna hold a grudge, you've got the wrong guy. He's like if Mister Rogers fucked Steve Irwin, sorry for the mental image.”  
   
He guesses that's true, whatever the fuck it means. “Okay, fine.” Then he thinks about it for a minute, and there's another problem. Maybe he shouldn't ask at all, but the question is already in his head, and soon enough it's in his mouth, too. “Wait-- um. So, what about, uh. You-know-who? Is he invited?”  
   
Dave pauses, and squints. “Voldemort? Sure, whatever.”  
   
“Not fucking _Voldemort_ you _cretinous shitcrisp_ , who do you think I'm talking about?” And then he finally has the sense to lower his voice, and looks behind him, just in case there's a chance Gamzee is already done and about to walk into the conversation. No such evidence, but Dave catches him looking, and leans over to share his curiosity. Karkat turns back, and pushes him gently. “Um, actually, here's the thing-- you need to go, okay? Right now.”  
   
Dave rolls back onto his heels and stops trying to look over him, but just being there still makes him nervous. “Okay dude, fine. Did I say something?”  
   
“No. It's nothing. I'm just really stressed out, and, uh-- you know, busy, with laundry. See all this fucking laundry? I'm in laundry hell, Dave, and I'd appreciate if you'd leave me to it, alright.”  
   
He raises an eyebrow, and it's obvious he has doubts, so Karkat keeps talking. “I'm serious, it's going to take-- Fuck. No, okay, you know what?” He drops his arms, freeing them to make diminutive gestures. “You wouldn't understand what's going on. You would not even _begin_ to understand the problems I'm having right now. Your mammal brain would squeeze all of the pansauce straight out of its weird subcranial worm masses just _trying_ , alright? I promise you.”  
   
“Listen, I know you're hiding something, it's cool. You don't have to tell me-”  
   
“It's Gamzee,” Karkat confesses. Immediately after, his face meets his palms. He leaves them there for a moment until he can let them drop away with a sigh, looking up into the sky. Into anywhere. “He's living here. With me. Alright? Fucking hell, Dave.” And he imagines Gamzee's cheek soft and warm under his palm again, and feels a lump in his throat. “I messed up, really bad. Really bad, Dave. How do I keep getting myself into this?”  
   
Dave puts up his hands, almost defensively. “Uh.”  
   
“It's like I don't even have a choice, cosmic forces are at work so that he keeps squirming his way back into my priorities. It's like a persistent growlfiend that won't leave once you feed it. I'm hopeless, Dave. Sometimes I think there's something seriously wrong with me.” He lets each hand tuck back into the crook of the opposite elbow, withdrawing somewhat after his admission. “But I have to, right? I mean, _somebody_ has to deal with it.”  
   
“That's not what you said when he got here.”  
   
Karkat stops, nearly sputtering. That's unfair-- he doesn't want to think about that. Just considering it makes him feel sort of sick, so he turns down the corners of his mouth and considers his folded arms. “Okay then, since you're the expert, apparently. What would _you_ have me do?”  
   
“No okay, listen, that was a bad idea. Forget I said anything.” Dave takes both hands and rests them on Karkat's shoulders, staring at him as purposefully as he can through the barrier of a dark lens. “I want to be absolutely clear with you here Karkat; I want _zero_ to do with your weird pregnant clown problem. Okay? Nothing. Don't even talk to me about it. Don't even talk to other people about talking to me about it. You're on your own.”  
   
“But--”  
   
“I'm serious.” He lifts his hands, and keeps them up in the air while he walks away, until he finally turns to go. A little ways past, he turns around, but keeps backing down the road while he cups hands over his mouth to shout. “By the way, it's a surprise party, okay? Mum's the word!”  
   
He sighs, feeling decidedly off-put about the whole thing, but only stands in his petulance for long enough for Dave to turn back around. After that, it's back to his search. There's no sign of the necklace in the bin or in the grass, and for the moment, he gives up. _Easy come, easy go_.  
   
While he's looking, Gamzee comes back around the corner. He looks alright, and his hair is wet, so it's a good sign he was as thorough as Karkat asked him to be. “There. Was that so bad?”  
   
Gamzee moves past him without eye contact, or speaking, and it occurs to him that he may have been waiting there, listening at the back of the house the entire time. His stomach drops, but it's too late, because he's disappeared through the front door a moment later. That leaves Karkat alone with the laundry, and the rising heat of the spring day.  
   
Great. Just great.  
   
He goes back to hanging the clothes.  
 

***

  
When he's done, and he comes back inside, Gamzee is making breakfast. It's the smell that hits him first, something that actually makes the cabbage seem palatable, before the realization that this sort of thing is going to be typical.  
   
“You could ask first, next time.” Karkat wonders how much food he's using-- from what scraps remain on the cutting board, it doesn't seem to be much. And he can't really be too angry, because Gamzee's cooking is better, anyway. So in another moment, he sighs, softens his voice, and speaks again. “Thanks.”  
   
Gamzee shrugs, staying focused on what he does almost like he's afraid to look away. There's a tension there he recognizes, and another decidedly consolatory urge occurs in him, though he works to stifle it.  
   
Gamzee's belly is, possibly, a little larger than the first day. Karkat finds himself staring again, and decides to change the topic before something else escapes from out of this throat. “Is that-- um-- is that going okay?”  
   
He looks up, briefly, from cooking. “Yeah. Think I'm getting motherfuckin used to it.”  
   
“Oh,” he answers. He wasn't sure what else he was going to say after. “That's. Good.”  
   
They stand, for a while. He isn't sure why he watches, but he does-- something about the ease with which Gamzee's hands find and roll the young garden onions under his knife, how his normal unwillingness and shake seems absent. It's mystifying, almost.  
   
“Ain't ready yet,” he says, finally. “I'll call at you some when it is.”  
   
That's more than enough of an excuse that Karkat needs to dismiss the topic with a nod, and evade slowly up the stairs into some peace and quiet. It's nice to have the upper room to himself again, if only for a little while, and he claims the bed by collapsing on it dramatically. What a day it's been already.  
   
But in a moment, it's bothering him how disarranged the sheets are, so he stands to fix them.  
   
In order to set the whole thing even again, tucking each corner of the blankets down around the improvised mattress-- they were still thinking up the schemes for decent ones, but burlap and broomsage would do for now, and slime was out of the question-- he has to move Gamzee's bag of things from the corner. But a moment after he does, he stops, and has a moment spent with himself in conflict.  
   
 _Do not. You don't need to know._ But he's curious, for the first time, and suddenly so, so uneasy about everything. These were things he'd figure weren't worth asking anymore. In the end, he proves once again to himself that he stands not a single chance against his impulses, and kneels to search through it.  
   
There's not much. Facepaint, like he suspected, though the supply seems to be running low. There's a few other bizarre things, ones that make no sense to him-- a perfectly gray seashell, a bullet casing, a pinecone. Some pieces of colored glass, which he has to be careful with. And then, he sees it, bright and silver there pooled at the bottom. He scoops out the necklace and stands from the bag, leaving it on the floor while he scowls. Just as he does, footsteps come up the stairs.  
   
Gamzee goes perfectly still when he sees him, in the same way he had yesterday, so Karkat is careful. He breathes in, first, tries to keep himself steady, and asks the most immediate question; “Hey. Did you take this?”  
   
Gamzee's eyes narrow a bit, but not in scrutiny. It's more like as if he'd had some sort of trouble with the question. His answer comes slowly, and not a moment before he realizes Karkat isn't about to speak again. “Uh--.” He pauses, still, and swipes his tongue between his chapped lips. “Brother, I found it at the floor downstairs.”  
   
So that's where it went. Karkat sighs, and pockets it, and notices how Gamzee flinches. Well, it's too bad, because he has to set some ground rules. “You can't just _take_ things you find around here, okay? They're not yours.” And there's still this very strange look he has, so he thinks to continue speaking, doing his best. “If you really want something, I mean-- you know you can ask me, right? This isn't prison, or something. You don't have to be sneaky.”  
   
“Yeah.” Gamzee's eyes are fixed to the floor, still, expression contorted like he's trying to remember something, or if the ground at his feet were a map, or any other thing worth such intense study. Whatever problem his pan is working on, it goes unsolved, and he shrinks vaguely. “Okay.”  
   
“Hey. Are you alright?”  
   
Gamzee nods, at first, but then folds a claw over his forehead, against his still-wet hair. Karkat moves from the bed, and guides him to it, letting him sit down.  
   
“Really, brother.”  
   
“No, I don't want you getting sick again. Take it easy.” He stands from his work, examining the clown on the bed. Besides looking sort of dazed and distant, he seems okay. The only thing wrong is the mass in his stomach, and there's nothing Karkat can do about that. He still frowns at it dutifully.  
   
“I ain't motherfuckin sick.”  
   
“I want you to relax anyway, we don't know it's not related. Fuck, we don't know anything.” Karkat turns away, carding both hands through his hair and letting out the tension in a heavy breath. “Is the soup done? I'll bring you up a bowl. Kanaya said you should be eating, maybe that's it.”  
   
“It's alright, Karkat.”  
   
He pauses, then, because Gamzee's voice is so low, and quiet, and almost sweet, that it actually stills him. He feels so, so guilty, almost dirty from how much, and looks back to see him lying motionless and calm, both hands folded over the curve of his belly. It's too idyllic. It's almost familiar, by now.  
   
“Yeah,” he says. It comes out of him like he's hypnotized. “I'll get you the food. Sorry. Hold on.”  
   
He comes back up with both bowls, and Gamzee sits up to eat, and Karkat pulls up a chair at his side, and they just do that, for a moment. He manages to get through his food bouncing his knee and chewing through the cubes of cured venison, without saying a word. That is until the same boiling feeling is in him, and his voice gets out. “You're scheduled to go back to work soon. Are you okay with that?”  
   
Gamzee nods. His eyes are still dull, and far away, but he doesn't look unhappy. It's hard to tell.  
   
“Are you sure? I think you should take another day. I'll do another shift, just so you don't go out there looking like a horror show. I mean, they're going to talk enough as it is.” He realizes too late that's maybe not the most sensitive thing to say, and goes back to his soup.  
   
“Any motherfucking thing you're wanting to do, brother.”  
   
It's a comforting enough answer, even delivered in indifferent deadpan. “Alright. I'll go check with Jane. She'll know how things are going.” He drops the soup and spoon there on the bedside table, abandoning dishes for the first time. “Eat, okay? Take care of yourself.”  
   
Gamzee agrees silently, and Karkat leaves for town.  
   
He's looking for Jane's house, since it's her day off, too, but only a few paces into town he runs into Roxy. Her tightly curled hair bobs around her face as she jogs up to meet him, leaning to catching her breath once he slows to a stop. “Karkat, we've got a problem.”  
   
He sighs, initially. Of course.  
 

***

  
   
In a moment, he's standing there in the barn with Roxy and John at either side, staring at the assortment of bags and containers they'd moved out from the storage closet. There's holes gnawed into a few of them, and it's the fresh things-- the wild onions and mushrooms and berries-- that are worst off.  
   
“Rats,” John says, simply.  
   
“What?”  
   
“You know. The little squeaky things that are always nibbling on exactly what they aren't supposed to be and then you gotta put them outside, but it sucks, because they're kind of cute, too. Little bundles of moral conundrums and whiskers and misery.”  
   
Karkat watches Roxy complete the whole sentence with an accompanying set of gestures, and remarks the familial similarities from a few hours previous.  
   
It takes him a moment longer to realize they're actually looking at him sort of expectantly, like there's something else to be done than sit here and think about how human plague creatures are slowly working at devouring their just-adequate food supplies. “Okay, stop. Hold on.” He puts his hands in his hair again, staring at his feet. “How much of a disaster is this? It feels like one.”  
   
“Oh naw, stubby, you're asking the wrong girl unless you want me to like, tell you how to scoop em up in your hands so they don't bite you and shove 'em outside into not-the-ocean so the cats don't get em, lmfao.” She actually says the last word somehow, cohesively, in a way Karkat completely understands, and it causes him to blink a few times. “Uhh, If I was handing out guestimates, though, I would say something like, a pretty decent enough one. You'd have to ask Pyrope about the numbers.”  
   
It's too late-- the blocks are already switching into alignment in Karkat's head, and pretty soon, he and everyone he knows is doomed. He should have seen this coming-- vermin were a normal enough problem even on his home planet, and now...  
   
“Woah. You okay?”  
   
“I am absolutely fucking fine,” he answers John, though the panic is still filling him like a balloon. “Call Terezi. And-- uh. We'll harvest the potatoes a little earlier, and somebody can take an extra shift to replace some of what we lost. Volunteer basis. As per usual.” He pauses, thinking about it, and decides to be honest. “I don't know what else to do.”  
   
“We got this,” Roxy promises, patting him on the back as she passes. “You're a wreck, sweetie, go hoooooome.”  
   
He doesn't comment. John finishes replacing the bags around the ones that have been chewn through, and in a while, he decides there's no reason left to stay.  
   
He does finally make it to Jane's nice stone house on the east end of the village, knocking twice on the door before he's invited in. She's sitting there pouring over a selection of books, and he waits until her attention lifts from them to speak.  
   
“Hey, uh. I'm going to take another shift, tomorrow. We won't have Gamzee back yet.”  
   
The troll's name still tumbles somehow in his mouth when he tries to say it, and she has exactly the look of uncertainty he expected. She slips a placemarker into one of the large books. “Oh. Is he not feeling better?”  
   
“No. He's the same disaster as always.” Karkat sighs out his feelings, hoping it's clear enough without having to go on yet another spiel about the issue. “I don't want to push him. This whole thing is so uncomfortable.”  
   
“So I've heard.” She adjusts her glasses; bifocals, he guesses, from how she lowers them a bit to peer at him through the top half. “Don't push yourself too much, either.”  
   
“I won't,” he assures, like defending himself from an accusation. “See you later.”  
   
But the same feeling is stiffening his shoulders, and his heart, until he gets home again.  
   
It's approaching noon now, and the way the sunlight beats down on the flowers in the front yard and the familiar _thunk_ of the first doorstep under his foot is reassuring. He's actually eager to be home, he realizes. The wall feels solid and nice when he shuts the door behind him, and the smell of the food from morning is still just barely in the air. It's quiet, and bright, and the daytime has him feeling sleepy.  
   
He walks upstairs almost like he's already dreaming. Gamzee is there, as always, looking at him with eyes that seem clear and aware, now. “You okay?”  
   
“What?” he mutters. “Yeah. Wait-- no. No, Gamzee. Everything's a disaster.”  
   
Gamzee scoots away from the open side of the bed, leaving a space unoccupied and inviting. He looks at it, and his stomach twists, and he thinks _you can't_ \-- but he does anyway, resting himself down there in the sheets and pillows. He gives Gamzee his back, but it's no good. He can still feel him there, a real and definite presence. It's not even a little bit unwelcome, no matter what he wants it to be.  
   
“I know you papped me this morning, brother.”  
   
He stiffens, but doesn't move.  
   
“Motherfucker, you listening at me?”  
   
He nods, slowly, his mouth suddenly dry. But stays looking ahead all the same.  
   
“Please ain't be to do that again.”  
   
He doesn't expect, doesn't anticipate that it has the capacity to hurt. But it does, and that scares him. The fact that his palms feel hollow and purposeless, suddenly, and his stomach twists, and there's yearning. _Yearning_ , of all things.  
   
The ache is enough to choke him, and he's afraid if he speaks, it'll be obvious. But he does, anyway.  
   
“Okay.”  
   
They lay next to eachother in silence for the rest of the day.  
 

***

  
   
“Oh my god, _cats_.”  
   
Terezi and Roxy stand in the barn, where they're picking through the displaced inventory. Karkat's plan is okay, but she has one better; trading the fish surplus into Rose's alchemizer for some oranges. Nobody needs to be getting _scurvy_ on her watch.  
   
The comment causes her to stand. “Cats?”  
   
“Cats!” Roxy repeats, grinning. “We'll keep a few more around town, they'll do the dirty work for us.”  
   
Very easily, she can imagine this getting out of hand. “What about Tavros? He eats this stuff too.”  
   
“Omfg girl we're not putting the cats _in_ the food, he can tell em to amscray if they're all up in his sniffley business.”  
   
Terezi twists up her mouth at the idea, and Roxy laughs. She guesses earth human plague beasts and earth human yowl creatures are outside of her current purview, when it comes down to it, but she'll give him a warning nonetheless. “Fine. Not too many!”  
   
It's already decided, she realizes. There's a sigh that leaves her, but when she finishes refortifying the last of the new containers and shuts the door, she's already managed to put it out of her head. There's a dedication she has, suddenly, to improving her mood today. She doesn't feel like sleeping-- she feels like stopping by the library and picking up the next book in the series Rose had started her on, even without finishing the first one just yet. There's only a few chapters left to get through, and the adventures of _Artemis Fowl_ leave her curious. It had been a bit of a disappointment to learn earth's subterranean fairy societies were an elaborate fiction, even as implausible as they had appeared to be.  
   
An ominous feeling occurs to her while walking home, and she realizes what it is the moment she takes in a breath, and smells Vriska and Feferi walking towards her on the other side of the main road.  
   
The two are laughing about something, a bit of an edge to it-- and when their milk-white smiles turn forward, Terezi braces herself to the sour taste. Vriska waves, immediately. “Hey!”  
   
Terezi thinks, briefly, that she could keep walking. But something is sort of wishful, still, so she walks forward and lifts her head as if trying to meet eyes when she answers. “Hey.” While Vriska slows to a stop, Feferi walks past them, cradling a basket of something-- probably those oranges-- back into mainhive. “Did the alchemization go okay?”  
   
“Swimmingly,” Vriska says through a sharp grin, and Feferi laughs somewhere behind her. “You catch any rats yet?”  
   
“No, Roxy's going to be handling all that. It's not like I was really excited about whapping a bunch of scurrying things with my cane all morning, either.”  
   
“Ooooohhhh, I get it. Too much like old times.”  
   
Her stomach drops, but Vriska doesn't notice. She's waiting until Feferi is out of earshot, and then she moves closer, smiling brightly while she claps a hand firmly down against Terezi's arm. “Come on, I want to show you something cool.”  
   
She shrugs off her grip. “No thanks. I have work.”  
   
“So _ditch_ it! Come on, since when do you color inside the lines, _hmmmmm_?” Her grin is so bright, and genuine, and just a little bit desperate, that Terezi's resistance starts to fade. Her fists wrench a little lest tightly around the pole of her cane, and her arms relax. “Just a few hours. Proooommmise it's worth your time, Terezi, or you can take the other eye.”  
   
She could cringe, at that, but for some reason she smiles instead.  
   
“Just _how cool_ are we talking, here?”  
   

***

 

In less than an hour, they're climbing over rocks and roots beside a thick, bubbling river, unnaturally comfortable under the glowing sunlight. The evergreens reach overhead, providing some shade, but most of it recedes back into the ferns and greenery of the forests on either side. This is true wilderness, Terezi realizes, not the razed and re-razed and carefully monitored wastefields of home, each square mile pruned and prodded regularly for maximum agricultural output in the face of ecological exhaustion.  
   
“So you're not sleeping at day, either?” she calls forward, tapping her cane staccato over the bumpy rocks to get a sure footing, licking the backs of her teeth trying to see where the silky black gaps are. The crackle of Vriska's rocky footsteps slows somewhere ahead, and Terezi imagines she turns back.  
   
“No, pff. Nights are too dark here, I can't see anything. Only one moon. Can you believe that? All that work for only one fucking moon? We got ripped, Pyrope. Absolutely _ripped_.”  
   
She snickers, to herself, but has to stop to be able to clearly breathe in the scent of the ground. Vriska groans, and it's familiar, and keeps the smile on her face. “You know that I mean.”  
   
“Yeah, yeah.” She'd walk in the grass to make this easier, but that feels like giving up, and Vriska seems dedicated-- purposefully-- to leading the path through the craggy river shores. “That's not what happened, tough. It's not ours.”  
   
“What do you mean, not ours?”  
   
She shrugs, even if she isn't sure if Vriska watches. “Not our frog. It was Jade's.”  
   
Serket turns forward with a huff. “Still needs more moons.”  
   
She lets the topic drop after that.  
   
After a while, she'd never admit it, but she's getting honestly winded. Huffing breath up against her palate and into her nose has her fully occupied, till finally when there's a new sound and scent amidst the salad-fresh greenery and salty blue sky, Vriska is the first to notice. She alerts her to it by stopping her progress with a hand flat to her chest.  
   
“Shh. Listen. Almost there.”  
   
There's a faint roaring out there past the next riverbend, and Vriska's enthusiasm is nearly broiling now. She starts back forward with a renewed pace, almost a jog, and Terezi has to click her tongue doubletime to catch up. At least here on the curved bank the ground levels into grass and clover, and finally her footfalls are on the softness of pea-green mossbed. She's still trying to mask her breathing by the time she catches up, the world a blur of scents and tastes. It's all green and white and blue and sand and summer, like looking at the planet from far away.  
   
“Quit sucking wind and check it out!”  
   
She does stand, finally, and looks out into the new clearing and the pounding noise of water. There's a tall, white, fresh streak of something cold and bright in her not-vision, and as her breathing slows, it comes into focus. Atop a cliff of pale, sandy boulders, an impressive waterfall pours over the terraced edge into the river below. It pools thick and deep there, before flowing out down the next small steps into the big quick thing that sweeps around their backs. Terezi's eyes hurt faintly, from staring upwards into the brightness, so she covers them. It's easy to forget.  
   
“Well?”  
   
She'd almost forgotten. “Yeah, Vriska, you were right.”  
   
“I was right about _hmmmmmmmm_?”  
   
Terezi flashes her teeth, and butts her fist there against Vriska's shoulder. “It's _cool_.”  
   
Her eyes light up-- all eight of them-- in a way that's almost reassuring. “Race you to the top!”  
   
Before she can protest, the girl is off, speeding towards the start of the cliffs like a shriek-kite out of hell. Terezi jogs after, grudgingly, but comes to a problem once she reaches the bottom and considers the various grips and footholds Vriska uses to hoist herself up.  
   
“What about my cane?”  
   
“Can't hear you from _allllllll_ the way down there!”  
   
A few sweeps ago, there may have been a retort, but not now. She shifts her grip around it for a moment, but then decides to slide it into one of the loops about her belt, till the head of the dragon rests securely there by her hip. It shouldn't fall out. Her hands flex in the open air, before searching around the mess of sun-glare rocks for something that holds, and she lifts herself up, doing the same with her foot. It's like that, for a while, though every time she looks up and sniffs, Vriska seems to be farther away. She would never admit it, but it frustrates her.  
   
“This isn't fair.”  
   
“If I wanted a drag, I would have brought Nitram.”  
   
That makes her scowl. She dedicates herself anew to finding the next rock that settles snug and firm into her grip, and hoists herself forward like she'd imagined she would in the training gauntlets of the legiscerator colleges. She doesn't even bother tasting the air, anymore; her tongue is locked firmly behind her teeth, and stays there until she finally feels the top edge of the rocks, and pulls herself over.  
   
“Finally,” Vriska wheezes out, sitting some meters away. “You take... your sweet time?”  
   
Terezi stands, dusts off her hands, and stares. “You're winded.”  
   
“Fuck you,” Vriska laughs, and stands to take her hand. She leads the both of them out over to the large, night-dark log of a fallen tree, one that hangs itself right over the river onto a set of rocks conveniently placed for stepping. She follows her there, fingers locked, and together they sit out in the center and look at how the river and forest spread out to the west.  
   
Space is harder to define with her tongue. She has to huff in the breaths and swish her tongue around to get a good sense of it, sniffing and sucking on her molars. There's a muted quality to the flavors of things so far away, like something mixed with rice or milk. But soon it becomes clear. From here, she can see where the large stream feeds into the massive thing where all of Feferi's fish come from, and how that traces the western border of the town all the way along Rose's forest. It cuts along, keeping north into the valley between the two highlands, and beyond that, goes somewhere no one else knows.  
   
Finally, Vriska lets go of her hand.  
   
“Yeah, get a biiig mouthful. That's ours, you know?” She says, gesturing. “Nobody else's. And here we are digging potatoes out of the ground like peons.”  
   
“Neither of us are doing any digging. You're in information.” And cartography, on her off days. Terezi supposes that's how she's found this place, nestled up in the south hills where nobody else has any reason to go. Vriska rolls every single eye in her head, and sighs dutifully.  
   
“Were you _always_ this pedantic? I had better company when I was dead.”  
   
She turns towards her, mouth slightly open. “Don't say that.”  
   
“Say what? It's true. Everyone here is dopey and gutless, and they hate me.” Vriska's arms come up to fold around her knees, while she curls there bitterly on a stone. With the lowering sun glaring off of her glasses and neatly polished horns, she looks like a gargoyle, poised over the edge of this thundering river-- it's hard to hear her voice over it. “They all just want to live the rest of their sad little lives plucking turnips and knitting hats. They all act like it's in the past, but I know better. I've been down that dusty road before. They don't even have the nerve to say it to my face!”  
   
Terezi pauses, wishing she was stunned.  
   
“Jeez. Is that what you really think?”  
   
“What, you don't think so?” She turns, with a bit of a leer. “They've got theirs! That's how it works. What about _you_ , huh?”  
   
Her stomach goes a little colder, and she folds her arms, plucking the back of her cane out of the stream. The water is cold, and she fishes the whole thing out of her belt loop, and rests it there on the rock by her side. “What _about_ me?”  
   
“Oh my god, troll Sherlock, I swear you used to be smarter than this. Big, dumb ugly, with the face?” She curls two fingers at each corner of her mouth to mimic protruding tusks, and suddenly Terezi gets the idea. “If you're waiting for them to take care of it for you, you're gonna be waiting a loooooooong time. They'll drag that dead weight around like a dumb, smelly mascot, which proves _exactly_ my point, if you ask me. I mean, they could at _least_ have him do something useful, like dance for entertainment. Or we could throw rocks when we get bored.” She looks over, as if curious why Terezi hasn't interrupted her monologue, and responds to the awaiting stare. “Don't get me wrong, Aranea had some fucked up ideas! But she wasn't wrong about EVERYTHING.”  
   
Terezi swallows around the lump in her throat. “That's not what I want,”she mutters.  
   
“Please, Terezi, save your magnanimous drivel for the adoring masses.” And then Vriska leans in, like sharing a secret. “I'm on your side. I think the two of us could team up again, you know?”  
   
“You mean _kill_ him?”  
   
That changes her tone. Suddenly, Vriska raises both hands and leans away, palms open and expression stern with indignation.“Whaaaaaat!? Who do you take me for? Really, Terezi, I'm hurt. I've put that sort of thing behind me. Unlike _some_ people.”  
   
Terezi stares at her in disbelief for a moment longer before she shakes her head, and plucks her cane up from the rocks to work her way back to the shore. Vriska stands, smelling like all the guilt in the world for just a moment before it twists, and veers in another direction entirely. “Oh my god, it was a joke! I was joking! ...You ARE still worked up about it. I _knew_ it!”  
   
“Shut up,” she yells back, trying to get her footing on the slippery rocks. She can't be out of here soon enough. “Ugh. I can't--- believe-- I let you drag me out here--”  
   
“Caaareful, Pyrope. You're slipping.”  
   
“I'm-- Augh!”  
   
Her foot comes right off of the next stone, and before she knows it, she's there on her back in the current. It's dragging her just enough that she scrabbles back to stand, and slips once more when her palms hit the smooth rocks of the riverbed. A hand grabs her wrist and hoists her up, and she yanks it away as soon as she's stable, sputtering, retreating to the bank and dripping from head to toe.  
   
“Are you alright?”  
   
“Fuck off!”  
   
“Your arm's bleeding.”  
   
“Don't touch me!” She shakes the water off her arm without the cane in its grip, spits water from her tongue. She heads towards where she can remember the forest being, swinging the dragon's head in front of her in wide, angry arcs. Serket is left there behind her, uncharacteristically silent, and forgotten once the cane swishes into ferns and saplings and she can evade into the safety of the forest.  
   
No matter how many times she licks her teeth, all she can taste is blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't decide if I should tag for pairings Just Yet, though I suppose to the dedicated observer, things are falling into place.
> 
> The illustrations are... more than I should have done for one chapter, too ambitious for my current energy levels, and widely inconsistent in their execution! I'm sorry. probably the best solution it to try and do not quite that much art in a weekend ever again. The positive aspect is that it means chapters will come out faster. This one is, to my prediction, the longest. It's also not my least favorite, which is good.
> 
> At some point I expect to feel ridiculous about writing and drawing this much on This fic in particular, but today is not that day.
> 
> I hope none of you are bored yet!


	7. Intermission 02

  
While Karkat is away one morning, someone knocks on the door. For Gamzee, the noise is loud enough to startle him. He'd bundled himself safely in Karkat's bed to watch the crows through the window, letting his thoughts slowly drift apart into fuzz around the sound of their wings. The pound of a fist on wood brings everything back into sharp points, like a sheet of broken glass.   
    
For a while, he sits in the patch of sunlight on the bed like it's an altar, somewhere safe. He isn't sure what to do. Things keep pulling him in different directions.   
    
In the end, he throws one of the blankets over his shoulders as a ward against the chilly air, and pads as quietly as he can down the stairs and towards the door. By the time he hovers in front of it his heart hammers, but he manages to close that terror in apathy once he grips the handle.   
    
The morning isn't warm, exactly, but the sun is out and bright. So when he sees Tavros, the young man is almost haloed by the glow of the fields behind him, with beads of sunlight trapped in the veins of his wings. The panic recedes into a gentle nervousness, and Gamzee grips the edge of the doorframe.   
    
It takes him a moment to manage words; his throat is dry, and he hasn't been speaking if he can help it. “Hey.”   
    
“Hey,” Tavros answers. They meet eyes, but not for long-- Gamzee soon has to look away. “I was thinking, maybe, if you don't mind, I could say hello a little. Can I come in?”   
    
He doesn't see why not. He backs away into the kitchen, and Tavros takes the invitation, climbing the two steps up through the door and into the house.   
    
He's taller than he was as a kid. Gamzee vaguely remembers somebody small, though it may have just been the shape of the chair around him. They were all small, back then. Now the two of them nearly meet eyes, and Tavros has to move his head carefully to keep the wide horns from banging into the cupboards. There's more of him, everywhere-- like someone stuffed another troll's worth of pullgristle under his skin. He's suddenly all the more conscious of his withered arms and narrow shoulders-- at least his hair is clean, though he still checks a strand between his fingers, and tucks it behind his ear. He must look like as much of a wreck as he feels. If he's not careful, blood is sure to rush to his face.   
    
He could ask what Tavros is doing here, but the question won't come up out of his throat. Which is okay-- he decides he doesn't need to know. He's content to watch him as he reaches out to touch the edge of the counters, look around at the sink and the water basins.   
    
“How were, the roots, that I got you?” He asks, an obvious attempt to break the silence.   
    
His tongue is loosening up, though it still feels unpracticed. This time, noise happens. “Tasted real motherfucking gross. But I figure how at that means good for the shit what I should be doing.”   
    
Tavros grins, bright and wide. “That's good. I'm sorry, that they're gross.” His gaze keeps floating back to the walls and counters out of politeness, and at the next question Gamzee knows why. “Uh. Are you doing okay, otherwise, than the grossness of things, I guess not just how in stuff is tasting, if that's okay to ask.”   
    
He can't blame the curiosity. “Gross ain't not what's apt to get said about it.” He takes off the blanket, rolls it into a rough fold between two arms, and sets it on the counter. “It's alright. See at for your motherfucking self, bro.”   
    
Tavros' eyes fall to the swell of his stomach. He's not much bigger than the first day, but it's enough, and looks alien enough, that Gamzee is suddenly nervous. He bristles, at first. He hopes, almost, for something as mundane as Karkat's discomfort and revulsion, at the same time feeling apprehensive. _Was that wrong, to show him?_ But Tavros only sounds interested when he speaks. “Wow. Uh-- This is I think, a weird and rude request to be making, possibly, but--”   
    
“It's fine, motherfucker.” Gamzee braces himself along the counter, locking his narrow elbow. He lets it happen, but his claws digs into the wood all the same.   
    
Tavros is surprisingly careful. Even with permission, he hesitates just enough that by the time he lowers his broad hand to Gamzee's stomach, his panic has dulled to the idea, and he doesn't startle. Tavros squirms up his face a little, but not in a way that hurts Gamzee's feelings. “That's so weird.”   
    
“You're gettin your preach on choirways with such noise.”   
    
Tavros smiles again, showing a row of clean teeth. “I'll bet. Does it hurt?”   
    
“Only at some motherfucking times.”   
    
Tavros withdraws his hand. There's no weight in his heart at the absence, but neither is there at his company, and he doesn't know what to do. In a fit of confidence, Gamzee decides to make an offer. “You want some tea, motherfucker?”   
    
“Oh, no, uh--- well. Actually, yeah. If it's okay.”   
    
“Karkat ain't gonna be sore about it. Let me heat this bitch up.”   
    
He knows how to work the stove and the kettle; it's about the same as what he had, though here there's more space to work with. All the same, he tries to get it exactly right. It's satisfying to watch the fire crackle to life and the water fill the pot; there's symmetry to it. It's even, it's good, that objects stay solid in his grip. That something can start and end in his hands. Tavros puts himself by the table in the meantime, sitting and waiting, wings parting to either side of the chair-- he's stealing glances from the kitchen, but tries to be subtle.   
    
By the time Gamzee has the cups washed out and ready the shrill hiss of the kettle tells him it's done. He takes both cups out into the main room and sets them an equal distance apart, and sits opposite from his visitor. Tavros is looking around at the high ceilings and sturdy walls, but stops to take the drink into his hands.   
    
“This is a nice place.”   
    
“Yeah, the digs be most wickedly bitchin.” His own mug is hot against his thin hands, which seem to him at times reluctant to staying warm in the colder mornings. “He's generous at me to get stayed here.”   
    
“Yeah. It's good that, you have somewhere nice, to be, I think, as opposed to something else, which I think maybe was already, too much of a thing that was happening.” It's saying a lot that could have gone unsaid, and Gamzee quiets. Tavros notices, and after a moment of fidgeting with his hair, explains what he means. “I'm sorry I didn't visit you, before now, which is not to say I did not try, or think about doing so, but sometimes you were not there. Or I had the feeling, you did not want other people to be there, so, after enough times, I guess I decided to leave you alone, if that's how you wanted to be left.” He looks up-- there's something almost apologetic about his stare, and it puts aches in him. “But, if you're happy to not be, I would be happy to not. Leave you alone, that is.”   
    
Every word rattles him. He has to open his mouth a few times before the question comes out. “Why are you to be so nice to me?”   
    
Tavros seems just as surprised by the question. “Is that to say, you think I shouldn't be?”   
    
It sounds so simple, but it tumbles down wrong in his brain till it hits the surface there, where it sinks. Like a stone in a well.   
    
“I ain't such a thing for that treatment.”   
    
The room is silent until he looks back up again. Tavros is staring with that same odd expression, that one that seems all too old and knowing, and not a drop unkind. “I'm sorry, that you feel that way.”   
    
He just nods. He doesn't know how to disagree.   
    
“Brother?”   
    
His eyes light up, almost hopeful. “Yeah?”   
    
“That wriggling day party...” It's a question he's not sure he should ask, so he turns the cup around a few times in his hands and silently practices the shape of the words. “Could I get myself attending such things.”   
    
There's confusion next, and a pause as Tavros tugs back one corner of his mouth. Gamzee is afraid what's coming next is a gentle denial, something to let him down easy, but that's not what he says. “I don't know about anything like that, that is happening.” That's a hint, at least, to what Dave must have meant by “surprise party,” an expression that as as alien to him as the mild sun. He wonders if he's done something wrong.   
    
Sensing his nervousness, Tavros continues. “But I mean, if there were a thing, that I knew about, I would say. Yeah. I would like you to go. So, uh, if there is a thing, yes, I think you should come.”   
    
He's relieved-- more than that, his beatpump goes a little faster. There's something out there in the future that isn't pain. It's like a revelation.   
    
When Tavros goes back home, Gamzee shuts the door tightly, and stays there with both hands on the knob. There's no locks anywhere in town, especially not here. It's not a lock, exactly, that he wants-- just something to quiet the way his chest hammers.   
    
All the same, he's grateful. It's like coming up for air.


	8. Their Sky

  
Kanaya makes breakfast; a glass of freshly caught hare's blood for herself, and a plate of mild things for Rose; unseasoned meat from the hopcreature, and mushrooms and tomatoes from the garden, cooked in oil. One of the few alchemized culinary supplies.  
  
Everything was a trade, in this world. The technology ran independent from the game's expired machinations, but there was always some sort of price to pay for the thing they couldn't make on their own. Equius was trying to find some way to turn parts of his collection of historical art into iron, but the results had been... interesting.  
  
She brings the plate into her room and by the bedside table, just on the border of the sunlight from the window. Though she tries to be quiet, Rose awakens anyway, and lifts their head.  
  
They rub each eye slowly, then smile. “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?”  
  
Kanaya lifts one eyebrow. “One of your great earth poets?”  
  
“He's okay. I prefer Kanye.” They reach out for one of the mealprongs, and stick it into a soft mushroom, bringing it back to their mouth. There's a moment of silence while they chew, and their eyes open wider from the sleepy half-mast they had been before. “Oh my god. Thank you, I needed this.”  
  
“Are you feeling better?”  
  
“It comes and goes.” Rose takes the plate carefully into their hand and brings it closer, this time going for the protein. “You take wonderful care of me. I'm going to be spoiled rotten, then where will we be? You're going to have a disaster on your hands, Maryam.”  
  
“Oh I think I have plenty of those already.” She smiles all the same. “You're _welcome_. I like when you visit me, sick or not.”  
  
“Mhmm.” They say it through a mouthful of meat and tomatoes, but then a thought occurs to them before they finish, so they rush to chew it down. “Ohf-- Kfnaya”  
  
“Chew first, sweetheart.”  
  
“Mf-- Yeah yeah. I forgot to ask.” They wipe their mouth on their forearm-- Kanaya resists the urge to bristle or roll her eyes, because really it's endearing. “Did Terezi visit you yet?”  
  
Kanaya nods, and sits herself down on the bed's far corner, smoothing the folds of her skirt. She carries her glass in the other hand, and holds it to her mouth before speaking. “Yes. She mentioned you had something to do with that.”  
  
The first drink of warm blood in the morning is something she revels in. She could have drained the hare when she killed it, but there's something she misses about sharing meals with others, and this is the closest she can really get. The satisfaction puts a dent in the hunger that's always there-- the companionship does even more.  
  
“I did.” Rose looks very proud of themselves, at that answer. “Did it go well? She seemed... distressed, when we talked. I wanted to send her to the only expert I knew on the matter.”  
  
“I think it might have.” She takes another sip of blood, but tries to space it out. In a few more swigs, it will be gone. So instead she sets the cup and her hands on her lap, and looks out to the window where the two of them had sat. “I wish I could be more help to her.”  
  
Rose places their chin into their palm, and continues to eat. To their credit, they at least wait until their mouth is empty before they try speaking again. The initial enthusiasm has cleared. “Mmmmm. That's very nice of you.” Rose looks up after the next bite, eyebrows waggling once. “Is it the human kind of helping, or the troll kind?”  
  
Kanaya would be startled, or maybe should be-- but the implication runs right into suspicions that had been hiding away, at least subconsciously. “You dog. I _knew_ it.” She smiles all the same. “If I didn't know better I would suggest outright that you are up to something.”  
  
“You just did.” Rose returns the grin, and puts up both hands in a show of peace-- one holds the fork, with a lone tomato skewered on the teeth. “But no, I swear my inquiries are entirely in the basis of furthering our cross-cultural intelligence. Take me to the board of ethics if you will; they have to pry this venture from my cold, dead hands. I think I'm on the verge of a breakthrough.”  
  
“You're looking for some field research opportunities, you mean.” And she smiles, at first, before the thought seriously occurs to her. “If you wanted to, I'm sure you could court her in that quadrant on your own.”  
  
Rose is not so unobservant to miss the change in her expression. They sit up, patting the spot beside them, and Kanaya makes her move to sit up by the pillows. She places her mug on the table by the empty plate.  
  
“I feel guilty. About the meteor. That I couldn't do what you attempted to.”  
  
Rose nods. “Do you want to talk about it? I have a confession to make, Kanaya-- and perhaps I'm out of line in asking. But it's an obvious question, I think.” They steady their gaze, as if out of respect for the situation's complexity. “Why didn't you?”  
  
It's been long in the coming. The idea of providing auspitice herself had lingered, always, in the back of her head, but...  
  
“Because I'd learned my lesson.”  
  
She's still unwilling to divulge the truth of the matter; not that anything she's said has been untrue. But there's a depth to her feelings that she finds some difficulty in trying to share. What she'd learned is this; at the time, she'd been happy to avoid any situation that could disappoint her. On it's own, not a sin. But if she tried again to put herself where her heart wasn't...  
  
“It being the smart thing to do-- even the right thing to do-- wasn't enough.” Her voice is quiet, and Rose watches in concern. “All this time I thought I was acting through necessity. But the truth is-- that's only how I allowed myself to remain where I did not belong. I couldn't stand the thought of the alternative. Of irrelevance.”  
  
“You're not that, to me.” Rose insists. “To anyone.”  
  
“I know that now. I suppose I'm just ashamed.” She sighs. “In the end, I'm glad I didn't. It turned out there was something more than any of us could have handled. But poor Terezi.”  
  
Rose nods encouragingly, and lies back on the bed, patting their chest with a hand. “Come here.”  
  
Kanaya accepts the invitation, laying her head to Rose's sternum. One of those warm, brown hands comes up to drag fingertips across the curve of her smoothest horn. Kanaya does not purr, (she is much too old for that, she thinks,) but the urge is somewhere small and far away in her.  
  
“You're pale for her, aren't you?”  
  
“ _Rose_.”  
  
“I have to ask,” They say, sounding not a little affronted. “Because otherwise I might take you up on your suggestion. Not that I'm initiating any kind of competition, here. Quite the opposite.”  
  
“Of course not,” Kanaya agrees, with a tone of sarcasm she has practiced almost to perfection, over the sweeps. “The board of ethics would have you by the collar then.”  
  
“What I'm saying is, I think I want to encourage you.” Rose's fingers are in her hair now, only a little, but enough to be gentle in the way most human intimacy is. “You deserve a shot at the things you really want.”  
  
That's touching, and so apt, that Kanaya isn't sure what to say. Eventually it works its way up out of the warmth in her chest; “Thank you.”  
  
She has to leave soon, so as nice as it is here with her ear to her matesprit's rumblespheres, she sits and takes her glass, trying to drain it. She wants more than she has, but has to stick to a habit of taking only what she needs. A curse to pay for all of the other boons-- as the cup drops she thinks, again, to how everything in this world must be fair.  
  
She wonders if the scales are still tipped, for what she'd done with Vriska. Perhaps a useless concern.  
  
Rose watches her drink, ever curious. “Can I try some?”  
  
Kanaya doesn't see why not. Grim fascinations, she can understand, and if anything Rose's interest in her more monstrous habits had been comforting. She hands them the glass, and watches as Rose tips it up to their lips like a champ, taking a brave portion of the blood. The cup lowers away and their expression screws up, for a moment, but they swallow it dutifully. “Gross.”  
  
Kanaya takes it from their hands, and drains the last of it. “I suppose it's an acquired taste.”  
  
That's a joke, and Rose catches like they catch all things, grinning brightly. A smear of red blood still rests on their mouth, and after a moment spent in appreciation of how the morning light catches in their blond hair, Kanaya leans forward, gathering it up in a kiss.  
  
There's a pause when she pulls away, long enough for Rose to blink twice before covering their face in their hands, and laying back flat to the bed with a thump. “ _God_. That was so smooth.”  
  
“Need help?”  
  
“You are dangerous.” They finally split their fingers apart, looking up through their hands. “No, no I think I'll be alright. Send in a rescue team should I swoon longer than a week.”  
  
“I promise.” Kanaya gathers up the cup and plate, and the fork, and stands from the bed. “I have to go. Are you alright here?”  
  
“I'm fine.” Their smile is dreamy and content. “You're a saint to your people, Kanaya. Don't forget it.”  
  
She matches the expression, thinking for a moment how grateful she is that things have ended up the way they did. After so many points of contention, so many mistakes, so much pain, they had their own lives now free from intervention. She can't think of anything she would want better.  
  
She steals another kiss, before she leaves. “You hardly give me a chance to.”  


\--- 

  
  
It's been a month since his day in the caverns.  
  
Gamzee has spent that month lying as still as he can, walking quietly, avoiding his hivemate. It's easy enough to do; Karkat takes any excuse and any extra shift he can to leave, keeping some secret sentiment behind darting eyes and well-gated teeth. They rarely even speak. He could imagine what it might be that Karkat thinks, in that silence, but that would hurt him and be pointless. There's nothing he can do about it.  
  
He sits in the yard, now, toes gripping the grass. His body feels so strange. He's flesh wrapped around a great sphere of iron in his hips, solid and hot and full. At the same time, it doesn't feel quite so purposeless or inert; it's going to be something more than a weight in him. They're warm and alive. He's scared, but he's something besides scared.  
  
His legs come up until they meet his stomach, and both arms fold atop the curve, and in moments like that his head seems to open up into a big, light place where even his own thoughts are gentle. It reminds him of the best parts of holding her over his shoulder, muttering “It's alright, sweetheart,” even as her smile turned to teeth. In the mornings, or nights, when Karkat hasn't yet woken or is first to fall asleep, it's only him and the eggs. So it doesn't matter that they frighten him. He's not alone.  
  
There's noise from the front of the house, and the door opens, and Gamzee's spine crackles and stiffens. He hears muted voices making their exchange around the corner, and then soft footsteps in grass as Karkat appears. He pulls a little tighter into himself.  
  
“Kanaya's here. She wants to see you.”  
  
He puts his lips to the top of his knees, to hide a scowl.  
  
In moments he's lying again in Karkat's bed while Kanaya places her cool, jade hands over his stomach. He hates it. The great, immovable calm of her frightens him. He keeps his jaw tight and his arms locked over his ribs, folded just before the lump of the eggs.  
  
Karkat sits to the left of them, in a chair, quietly bouncing his heel to the floorboards. Gamzee can see the white knuckles raise from the gray of his intertwined fingers, and the shadows under his stressed eyes. There's so much energy there wound tight and vivid, and he marvels it, sometimes, and fears it in others. He can't imagine that sort of thing being real anymore. Though if he tries, he can remember being very young and smiling sweetly at that agitation. His heart is empty now. He's found nothing so sweet in all the times he's sifted his fingers through it, but the ache remains all the same. He wishes it were there.  
  
Maybe he's too tired. Maybe he'd imagined it.  
  
Karkat breaks the silence with a question, his knee bobbing up and down twice within each syllable. “He said he's been cramping up more, is that normal?”  
  
Kanaya's narrow fingers press just above his hipbones until it hurts, and he holds in a hiss. She still notices his tension, and stares him down as she continues to prod. He doesn't know what she's looking for. “We don't have a precedent for normal just yet. But I know what it is. He's crushing.”  
  
He watches Karkat's face contort into gentle confusion, and snorts a little, feeling a grin settle on his teeth. “She ain't mean like that, brother.”  
  
Kanaya presses along until she feels give, in one tender spot, and explains. “Not all of the eggs mature. Some don't fertilize, or are structurally deficit. As the first eggs to develop grow larger and more rigid, the pressure will inevitably compress the others to the point where they flatten and rupture.” She looks up, meeting the disbelieving stare on Karkat's face with her usual utilitarian effect. “It happens in the gestation ducts of the mother grub, in much higher quantities.”  
  
Karkat looks a little sick, all stiff and like the blood ran from his face to fill his nausea plugs. But he's not the one lying there full of withering things. That amuses him darkly; almost in disbelief, two notes of laughter steal themselves out of his throat, and they both look at him like he told a bad joke. He quiets, but that sourness remains.  
  
He might taunt him if he was in a worse mood. It would be easy to tell him to keep his pity to himself if all it's going to do is let him grimace at a distance. He doesn't want that kind of pity. This horror is his own. But he doesn't feel that cruel; he'll let Karkat pretend that it does him any favors.  
  
She continues unperturbed, drawing a new level of terror out of Karkat's expression with every word. “He probably won't feel it, beyond the cramping. It's a slow process.”  
  
She's right. He hasn't felt it-- but now the idea of something small and fragile pressed too tightly within himself is in his head, and he feels coldly to it. He didn't know some of them were going to die. He doesn't like the idea of death inside of him.  
  
“What happens to the-- crushed? _Eggs_?” Karkat asks.  
  
“The healthy ones secrete a caustic anticoagulant. They're broken down for osmotic consumption.” She finds a spot that hurts, but breathing through his teeth or telling her would be useless, so he just goes rigid and suppresses a whine.  
  
“So they get _eaten_.”  
  
“Broken down for osmotic consumption,” She repeats, bracing her thumbs up along his ribs to measure the displacement of his protein chutes. It's uncomfortable. He wants this to be over already, twisting his claws gently into where they rest in the shirt on his chest. He doesn't want to listen to their voices float over him like he's a ghost. “They need food to grow, like anything else. No wasted protein.”  
  
He feels the weight resting there in him and thinks of himself becoming emptier and emptier, the fuller he gets. For a moment, he's scared all that will be in him is death-- a great big mound of it, till it swallows him up too.  
  
While he stares at the ceiling, Karkat's voice comes out again. “Well- there's another thing.”  
  
Here it comes. He takes in a breath.  
  
Kanaya looks up and stands from him, having completed her prodding to her own satisfaction. He tugs his ill fitting shirt back down over the mass of his stomach, and sits upright at the headboard with his knees braced under his folded arms. Kanaya's voice is clear and bright as it goes over his head; “What other thing?”  
  
“He's-- um. There's been some-- this is really gross. Leaking?”  
  
“I thought that might happen.”  
  
For once, he shares Karkat's frown. “And you ain't thought to warn a motherfucker?”  
  
“I didn't want to go scaring you-- it doesn't really happen to mother grubs. The post-ovum canals are much too long. It's harmless, besides.”  
  
He kind of blocks his ears to it, when she starts speaking, but bits and pieces make their way through. They all matter about the same to him, either way. “The same secretion dissolves the first two epidermal layers of the retention bladder, and the resulting exudate fills the spaces between healthy eggs. Through it's attempts to heal, the body continues to supply blood and fluids to the nutritional bath, which further sustains their development. I'm not surprised if some of it has to drain.”  
  
“They're eating _him_?” Karkat says, in that same tone of subdued revulsion.  
  
“Only a little.”  
  
He doesn't try to subdue the next crack of laughter, and Karkat flinches. He lets it fade, not only because of the look on his face now, because there's not enough guilt to make up for what Karkat tries to take that isn't his.  
  
“Anything else?”  
  
“His clothes don't fit right anymore.” Karkat lifts a hand to his hair, reluctant to ask. “If it's not a problem--”  
  
“It's fine. I was anticipating this. I'll make something for him.”  
  
Kanaya insists he's alright as long as he's not in pain, or weary, or weakening, and packs up her things to leave. Karkat walks downstairs to see her out, leaving him alone with the things in his body.  
  
The reprieve is nice, though it leaves him with dark thoughts. But soon there are footsteps coming back up the stairs, and the creaking of floorboards beneath them. He stays curled on his side, wrapped tight around the shape of his belly and trying to be small. Maybe if he looks like he's asleep...  
  
“Gamzee?”  
  
He cracks an eye and looks through the gate of his fingers, to see where he's moved. Karkat stands at the side of the bed now, looking guilty.  
  
“Can I talk to you?”  
  
Lying between Karkat and the window, it's not as if he has anywhere else to go. He nods, slowly.  
  
“I want to, um. Apologize. I've been avoiding it.”  
  
It takes him a while to pull through all the things Karkat has done, and try to decide which one he's supposedly sorry about, and what the right response is-- what it is that makes it okay enough that he won't be thrown out, or have to live waiting for the next apology. He makes a guess. “It's alright, brother.”  
  
“No it's not. I shouldn't have done that-- papped you, I mean. It was stupid, and I'm so fucking mortified with myself that it was. Uh. It was hard to even think about.” Gamzee can see the look on his face, and yeah, mortified just about covers it. “I just really want you to know that I agree. It was messed up. I'm sorry.”  
  
It's surprisingly earnest. Late, maybe, but there's a softness to it that sets him quietly rumbling in his chest, too quiet to be heard. He knows better than to purr as loudly as anybody else could hear, when he's not alone. He'd made that mistake just once, to comfort himself, to fill his chest with reverberations and think of things that would once summon them earnestly-- there was a crowbar waiting for an excuse the second he hit the decibel that made his pan sing.  
  
In the end, he can't answer. He has nothing to say. He watches Karkat with all that motherfucking emptiness in him, and hopes it means something, like he's hoping it'll make some sort of better sense to anybody else. It would be great to be handed an answer, a short letter that would finally put things right in his head again. But there's no such thing.  
  
Karkat breaks eye contact first, to look down at how Gamzee curls about his stomach. He coils a bit more, out of shyness, but Karkat interprets it as pain. “This is hurting you, isn't it.”  
  
“Ain't as bad as other motherfucking things.”  
  
He still looks sad-- his big grey eyes fall down to his hands, where Gamzee watches his thumbs shuffle about eachother. “I didn't know how awful this was going to be. I wouldn't have let you do it if I knew.”  
  
“You wouldnt've motherfucking _let_ me?”  
  
“No, I-- that's not what I meant to say. Look.” Karkat sits down, giving him some distance, and Gamzee gently props himself up onto his arms. He feels his body coiling like a spring, ready to leave, to carry him out of here, even though it never will. “I'm just. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm clueless about everything, you know that.” Karkat's eyes are so clear, he can see right through them, all the way down to those cruel thoughts. “I just. I know things are messed up. I know we're not really-- anything, anymore. But-- I don't want you to have to suffer.”  
  
He doesn't know how to answer that.  
  
Karkat's turning a bright red after his confession, and a little laugh of disbelief shakes Gamzee's chest once, but he doesn't do it to be rude. It's just so, so strange, so foreign; nothing about this feels substantial. Everything had been a long, frantic dream for so much time...  
  
“Is there anything you need?” He asks, carding his hand through his own hair. It's an attempt to hide the red on his cheeks.  
  
There's so many things. There's his big soft arms, his warm chest. There's broad, sturdy hands that could rub his back and coax the pains Kanaya left in his sides and hips. But he knows he can't have any of these things. He's too torn to ask.  
  
“I'm cold,” Gamzee says finally.  
  
Karkat takes initiative in a second, standing and tugging away a corner of the bedsheets. Gamzee backs away to the headboard, letting them be drawn up, and lies beneath them at Karkat's direction. Those warm hands touch him just barely between his shoulder blades, and where his body rests into the mattress while he tucks the blankets against Gamzee's sides. The too-quiet rattle in him threatens to become an audible purr, so he makes his chest go still altogether.  
  
There's a chill that rests in his skin, but in time, it'll pass. Karkat still watches him with empathy, if not sympathy, and stands away. “I can heat up a water bottle. That might help.”  
  
He nods. What he really wants is the space and quiet, but heat helps, too.  
  
Karkat comes up a minute later with the thing, settling it under the blanket by his chest and shifting the covers back over him. It's a tender gesture, and it leaves him shivering. Gamzee tucks it just under his solar plexus and curls about its radiating warmth, but it's not enough. Few things are.  
  
He tries to dull the parts of him that feel unsafe, and rests around the weight of eggs in him. He imagines the slow death of the ones too weak, and at that moment it doesn't matter how warm the bottle is or how many blankets Karkat rests over his shivering body. An icy feeling stays over him all the same.

  
  
 **\---**

  
  
Karkat wraps the stem of the potatoes around his palm to grip them better, and tugs them up out of the earth he'd loosened with the trowel. Last night, it had rained, and now the earth was soft and damp and easy enough to pull the plants from. They were a little smaller than they might have been, but this was only the first of many intermittent harvests. The plants stayed freshest while alive and in the ground, and the four quadrants of the field would be plucked up and replanted in rotation.  
  
Sollux works to his left, on the second row. He's outpacing him a little, which is unusual. Any other day, the troll would be using his psionics, and there'd be no hope of catching up.  
  
“Migraine?” Karkat asks. The tired grumble from Sollux's direction answers that well enough, and Karkat tries not to be amused when he shakes the dirt off and hefts the plant into the wheelbarrow. “Is it bad?”  
  
Sollux puts a palm to his temple-- he sees the tiniest crackle of psionics jump between his head and his hand, but the troll doesn't so much as flinch. “No, just the totally average amount of abject misery.”  
  
He's caught staring, and in a moment, Sollux's resting scowl turns back into a smirk. “I kid. It's not that bad. Just the light is kind of bright.”  
  
Karkat nods. He understands. The sun here may not hurt, but it glares, and when the sky is full of clouds like this they seem to burn with it. “You could have worked with Roxy and Jade in technology. Not that I'm chastising you, I'm just saying it's an option. Stay indoors, use that creepy genius brain of yours a little or something.”  
  
“I thought about it. I don't know.” His hand drops, and he goes back to the potatoes. “I like that stuff, but mental labor loses its appeal _just a little_ once you squeeze out all your blood through your _face_.” He does a peculiar little pantomime with his hand in front of his nose, opening and closing his fingers. “I just don't want to think for a while. And I've read exercise is supposed to be _good_ for you or something.”  
  
“Or something,” Karkat repeats.  
  
He rests on the rake he's using to till the earth, and watches as Karkat digs up another plant. In a moment of thought, and another rub at his temple, he speaks again. “I never told you. There's no voices here. Not a single dammed asshole rattling around my fucking head warning of impending disaster.” He pauses, then, as if something occurs to him. “So either no dammed assholes, or no disaster. Wouldn't that be nice?”  
  
He'd never thought of that. Sometimes he was jealous, of Sollux, of the things his mind could do-- not just the psionics, which were their own kind of marvel, but the speed at which he thought things, the way ideas seemed to exist long and complex and connected. He was smart. But Karkat hadn't given the other things much consideration.  
  
“I'm glad,” he says, standing to brush his palms clean on his pants. “Don't overdo it, okay? The last thing we need is you popping like a tube of grubpaste again.”  
  
Sollux grins brightly. “Yeah. That'd be gross.”  
  
They get back to work, while Karkat considers his options. There's not much in the way of painkillers, though he knows Sollux could get some from storage if he would just ask. Maybe he'll quietly throw in some of his old romance novels to the alchemizer and see what pops out.  
  
Gamzee might need them, too. There's been pain, more and more of it, as the eggs have grown. He's worried.  
  
When he looks up, the troll in question is out there the distance he likes to keep, kneeling by one of the plants. Karkat watches as he gives a slow yank to one of the stems below him, but hesitates, and then kneels still. Something doesn't seem right. Jane, who stands on the opposite corner, sees it too- they share glances, and he swallows back his nervousness.  
  
“Hold on,” he says to Sollux, holding out an arm. He doesn't give further explanation, abandoning his trowel in the wheelbarrow as he walks to Gamzee's side.  
  
When he's only a few paces away, he can see the injury in Gamzee's demeanor. His arms shake lightly and his breaths come in heavy as he curls about his stomach. His eyes are wide and aim straight forward as if they recognize some kind of threat, like he's somewhere else. Karkat inches closer, arms held tightly to his sides.  
  
He doesn't want to get too close to that energy he feels bristling, there. “Gamzee, are you okay?”  
  
It appears to startle him. His eyes dart upwards, but the rest of him stays small and curled by the earth. “I'm... fine, brother.” The words come between deep gulps of air, and his voice is so thin and narrow that Karkat finds his heart lurching.  
  
“You're hurting,” he says.  
  
Gamzee gets up and stumbles, trying to get away-- a noise comes out of him, a pained gasp inwards. Everything in Karkat's chest twists at the sound, and he steps forward again, palms up and facing outward. He doesn't know what he wants. Anything that will make it better. Gamzee turns, and his eyes flare; he can see the red creeping in along the sides of his sclera, and he stops himself a healthy distance away from the swing of an arm.  
  
“Get away from me,” Gamzee mutters. Still retreating, he crouches to pick up his trowel from the ground, clutching it in both hands by his hip. He swings it once in an arc through the empty between them, like he's trying desperately to define the space with the edge of the blade. "Don't touch me," he begs, voice strained-- there's fear in his eyes, so bright and exposed, and Karkat remembers that day in the kitchen with the butter knife. He doesn't approach, though he wants to.  
  
“Gamzee, it's okay.” Karkat lowers his voice, trying to meet his eyes. The others are watching-- he can see Jane out of the corner of his vision, gripping her rake. “It's alright, let me help.”  
  
“ _I said get away_!”  
  
He stops. Gamzee stands there heaving with panicked breath. The thing is clutched in his hand so tightly that his palm splits on the side of the blade, dripping purple down his fingers and into the damp earth. When Karkat sees that, it's all over for him. It doesn't take a single moment more before things in him just start to move, and he's stepping forward, lifting his arms, meeting the inside of his hands to Gamzee's cheeks.  A noise so low and sweet comes out of himself-- Gamzee's eyes are still wide and red, but clearer, now, suddenly. He's so close to him, nearly touching their foreheads together, smoothing his thumbs over and over against the top of his cheekbones while he shushes him. There's another noise; Gamzee's thick, needy purring so tender and yearning that he doesn't know why he spent a moment longer doing anything else but this. Gamzee's eyes lid, slowly, and Karkat can feel the same calm building slowly in his heart. In that second, it's like jumping into water on a hot day. It's like collapsing of exhaustion into a fresh coon. It's been sweeps, since he'd felt that way.  
  
Then the moment breaks. He sees those eyes flutter open again, and suddenly aware of himself, Gamzee pulls away. His uninjured hand cups over his mouth and he looks to the ground, and then he turns his back, retreating towards the woods. Karkat watches him go, still too stunned to follow, to even think straight.  
  
When he looks back, Jane and Sollux are watching. It's then that he realizes the wetness on his own cheeks and the pace of his breathing, and he scrubs his sleeves furiously against each eye before he looks out again, and follows immediately after.  
  
The ground is spongy and soft under the falls of his feet while he runs, coming to wade through ferns and bushes in the peninsula of trees Gamzee had escaped to. He can follow the drips of purple blood on the leaves, but he doesn't need to; he can hear a noise out in the first clearing, and slows to a stop when he finds him.  
  
Where the meadow breaks into a pool of grass, Gamzee sits with his legs pulled up to his stomach, and his spine bent to meet his forehead and knees. Karkat can see the way his shoulders are jerking with each racking sob, and how purple drains from the fist he closes over his wound. It's kept under composure, at first, but as Karkat walks closer his footsteps betray him and Gamzee doesn't turn around, or even try to get away. He cries. Loud, open-mouthed and pained. He cries _at_ Karkat's presence, like it's painful.  
  
Karkat doesn't speak. His words are stuck in him; he comes up just behind and kneels, letting his hands fall slowly against Gamzee's back. He jumps once under those palms, but stays still and trembling beneath the contact until they both know it's safe. A thick whine comes out of his throat as the other sounds quiet, and Karkat hears himself shushing again, moving the pads of his thumbs slowly along the inner ridge of each hingeplate.  
  
The noises still litter the air in the mournful, short hiccups that they come in, interrupted with his shaky breathing. It's too much. Karkat slides his palms down each arm and wraps them across Gamzee's knees, pulling him to his chest. He lowers his head, touching his forehead down into that mess of wild hair, hiding the redness in his own eyes.  
  
“Please don't cry.”  
  
It works, at first. He doesn't stop, but the noises do, until he's jumping slightly with each soundless pull of his weeping. Karkat can feel every twitch press up against how he holds him, and he shuts his eyes, finding Gamzee's bleeding hand with his own. He fits his thumb down into those closed fingers and strokes along the wetness of the wound, gently, feeling how bad it is. Poor thing.  
  
That's all he can think of; big, soft, piteous thoughts like a great warm thing in his stomach, and he knows it's no use. He can't do this anymore. Gamzee is all vulnerable things, and yet....  
  
As the stroking of his thumb comes to a stop, along with Gamzee's sobs, the troll in his arms slowly pulls away. He stands slowly as Gamzee does, and they hang apart there in the woods, quiet and alone. Gamzee looks at him-- not showing anger, or any other violent thing that had never been there, but with a sort of hurt and resignation he understands. Gamzee sniffs back the last of his tears, rubs his eyes, and asks gently;  
  
“Can I go home, brother?”  
  
“Yeah,” Karkat answers. He pulls his lip between his teeth, for a second-- his mouth suddenly feels dry, and his stomach sick. “Of course. Of course you can, Gamzee.”  
  
He still waits, like it isn't true. But when Karkat doesn't rescind permission he eventually turns and leaves, walking in that same careful way to compensate for the weight in him. Karkat doesn't feel right watching, so he looks away, and returns to the fields once he knows he's alone.  
  
Sollux and Jane are waiting for him when he gets back. He doesn't know how to answer them, so he walks past their concerned stares and goes to the wheelbarrow, taking out his tools to put them away. There's something more important he has to do now.  
  
“What's up,” Sollux asks him. He looks over for a second, but can't for too long, and looks away to hide the wetness of his eyes.  
  
“I have to go. Are you two okay here?”  
  
“We're fine,” Jane answers. “Do you need our help with anything?”  
  
He shakes his head. Bless their hearts, they don't ask him again.  
  
Once everything is put away, he leaves for Kanaya's house.

  
  
 **\---**

  
  
Karkat takes his shameful walk back through the islands of trees and seas of clearings before he reaches the main road, which eventually brings him to Kanaya's house at the edge of the eastern woods. He has plenty of time to think about what it is he's going to say. The words filter down to the bottom of his mind, but they still jitter just as his hands do. He's still trembling in his fingers, and his throat is closed up with a tight, sad ache.  
  
But he's ready to speak, once he knocks on her front door. He waits for a while, shoving his clammy hands in his pockets just before the it opens. It's not Kanaya that answers.  
  
He and Rose stare eachother down for a moment before he's greeted, in a tone that betrays surprise. “Hey.”  
  
“Hey,” he replies. “Is Kanaya here?”  
  
“No, she went to get something in town. But you're welcome to wait for her.”  
  
He considers bailing, but Rose moves away from the doorframe in a way that invites him inside, and suddenly the appeal of a mug of tea and hospitality-- and a reason to avoid going home-- is obvious enough it entraps him. He steps through the door and Rose floats away into the kitchen, where the rattling of cups and kettles soon summons his calm.  
  
“We have mint leaves, or the other kind we haven't named yet.”  
  
“Mint, thanks.” It's easier to find and grow; he remembers stories about how on Earth, tea only grew in a few places in the world. Rose had recalled the bloody history of colonialism and monopoly, and it had all struck him as pretty grim, even by an Alternian standard. In some ways, the monolithic fist of a cruel empress seemed less insidious than all the slow creeping. If nothing else.  
  
Rose reappears once the kettle is set to boil on Kanaya's stove, and joins him at the table. He pulls away a chair and sits himself down, sighing to prepare for the looming conversation. “Um-- pronouns, today?”  
  
“They is fine,” Rose answers. “This is the part where despite your visible distress I ask you how you're doing. How are you doing, Karkat?”  
  
“Terrible.” He brings his hands up, rests them on the table and wrings the fingers together until each knuckle cracks. There's still a stain of purple blood on his thumb. “Gamzee... broke down at work, today. He was in too much pain. I sent him home.”  
  
Their gaze softens, and he's glad to see that it does. It's a relief to feel that pity come off of them in the way it comes off of all humans, universal and at the slightest injury. It makes him feel better about the gallons of it resting in his own heart, for the troll, enough to drown in. “Is he okay,” they ask.  
  
“He's okay.” He still fidgets, sliding one thumb over the other, switching back and forth. “It's not fair, Rose.”  
  
Sensing that it's not a complete thought, they don't answer right away, giving him time to sort through it. He doesn't know what to do with the silence, but in a minute his thinkpan adjusts and comes up with what he really means by fairness.  
  
“You know, it was weird. On the meteor, I got this feeling.” He turns both palms up to gesture the weight of it, as if hefting something in each hand. “Like what happened to him was a sign that something was wrong. Like it wasn't supposed to be how things are going. I feel that way now, too.” He drops them back together; the need to fidget is too great, even though the moving of his fingers slows. “He was a hopeless kid. Not that I was any better. Here I was, this red abomination, and I had the audacity to think-- look at that guy, what cullbait. God. That's so fucking stupid, now that I think about it.”  
  
Rose listens. He continues. “I used to tell myself he was on his way out. There's such a thing as being too pitiful, you know. Any alternian troll worth their horns could tell he was fork fodder, it didn't matter that he was purple. Even clowns have fucking standards.” His voice is raising, so he takes a moment to breathe, and quiets himself. He doesn't want to shout the way he used to those years ago-- the memories are sour, now. “But he didn't care. He was-- he was like you guys are. He was this-- fucking-- gushy, dopey thing. And he pitied me, even from the start.” The last few words come out in a sigh, small and quiet, and they hurt to say. He covers his face in his hands, for a moment, but looks over them once he thinks there's no more danger of his voice wavering. He rests his temple into his palm, instead, and sighs again.  
  
“I just don't know how everything went so fucking wrong. I thought things were going to get better.”  
  
They nod slowly, not exactly in agreement, but in a way that makes it obvious how they're thinking, pondering over the words. Karkat feels emptied, suddenly, and waits for the response like a grim prognosis from a medicutioner.  
  
“Maybe you're thinking about it the wrong way.” It doesn't make sense at first, but then they explain. “It's not a matter of deserves, really. Things like that happen to people all the time. Would you have acted differently on that day, if you could?”  
  
“No,” He answers, quickly. “It wasn't a mistake. Saving him was the first good thing I ever did in my whole life, practically. I know everything else that happened, but... I can't regret it.” He pauses, feeling guilty. “Is that wrong?”  
  
Rose shakes their head  
  
“God.” He puts his head back in his hands. “It was so miserable. Why did we have to go through that? We should have been going to third trimester schoolfeeding and performing social evisceration rituals, and checking the names on the public cull boards. Not cramped in a rock prison out in space.”  
  
Rose nods. Before they get a chance to add anything, the kettle screams from the other room, so they pick themselves up to go get it. Karkat remains by himself at the table, alone with his thoughts. He rubs the pad of his thumb into the other's purple stain over and over, watching it eventually smear away into nothing on his gray skin.  
  
He wonders if Gamzee is still bleeding. He's wondering if he would let him gently dress the wound, holding his narrow hand like the delicate stems of plants.  
  
His imagination is interrupted when Rose sets the tray down on the table, and pours two steaming cups of the mint tea. He takes his eagerly, when handed to him, and settles into a thick gulp that already begins helping the ache on his insides. It's only one cup, but he doesn't want to ask for more. He can brew his own when he gets back to the house. He's looking forward to that, even if it means having to share quarters with the clown. Home is still home, and there's safety there.  
  
Once comfortable with their own mug, Rose speaks. “I've thought about that too”  
  
He looks up from his drink.  
  
“Those were formative years, we lost. Without any guidance to speak of, either-- John and Jade had the sprites, if you could even call those adequate. You know, I saw teenagers, as a kid, doing the things I thought every teenager would do-- going to the malls, highschool, college applications-- I still can't believe I'll never go to college. That I'll never have done any of those things.”  
  
He doesn't know what any of those things are, but they sound oddly familiar. So he nods. “Yeah. Everything we missed out on. And this planet, I mean, no offense-- I'm sure earth must be nice. But it doesn't feel like home to me yet.”  
  
“It's almost the same as the world you made with your frog. Have you thought about that yet?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I have this theory.” They pause to take a swallow of tea, or for dramatic effect, and Karkat knows it could be both. “That the universe creates itself through the same psychological profiling as the mechanisms that allow dreamer moon allocation and classpect-- that is to say, it's the world that's tailored to the players that created it. And why not-- if willpower shapes its own reality, then it should shape new realities, too.”  
  
It takes a while to process, but he catches up, or at least enough to make a reply once he gets an idea of where they're going. “You're telling me I wanted a world and a species full of hornless, snub-teethed aliens with my ugly candy blood?” He recognizes the diminutive tone of his voice, and shrinks, because he didn't mean any offense. Suddenly it's clear to them what they mean-- had he really dreamed up that planet and its people, out of an urge to.. what? To feel superior to some hairless primates? To feel kindred to them? “God, you're right, aren't you. Fuck.”  
  
“Don't go blaming yourself entirely. There were eleven other players in your session-- I'm sure they have something to do with it.” They pause, and lift the mug to their lips, and he takes a moment to wonder who he could blame the snow on. “Though I wouldn't be surprised if your investment was stronger-- you had the most to gain at the idea of a new world, I would think.” Rose sets down their cup. “If it helps, I like all there is to being human. I suppose I owe you some thanks.”  
  
That almost embarrasses him; he's spent so long thinking of every part of that segment of his life as a terrible mistake, and the implications of some sort of wounded, vulnerable core of him slipping into sgrub's code and spitting humans out as they were troubles him. But there's another feeling in there, something warmer, at her thanks. “Uh. Don't mention it. I fucked up, too, you know.”  
  
“Only a little. This place is almost exactly like the earth I remember. It goes to show that we couldn't think of a way to improve it.” They smile, gently. “I think that shows you did alright.”  
  
He finally recognizes the warm feeling as pride, though surprise coats it in a thin layer. “Thank you.”  
  
“No problem.”  
  
They share the moment in silence for a little while, before finally the obvious question rises up to the surface. “So, if it's not a private matter; what is it you want to talk to Kanaya about?”  
  
It is a little embarrassing for him to show his hand, so he gives a half-answer. “I need her help with something. Well-- with Gamzee.” But once he starts, the truth spills out anyway. “I still pity him, Rose. And a few weeks ago-- I did something. Something really bad.”  
  
They look worried. Karkat turns down his mouth, and eventually mumbles out the confession.  
  
“I papped him.”  
  
“You're going to have to catch me up on the lexicon, here.”  
  
“That's, uh-- it's a thing where you kind of.” He demonstrates on himself, lifting one hand up against the soft edge of his face. It's hard not to imagine how his palm fit so well against the hollow under Gamzee's cheekbone, and from the way Rose tilts an eyebrow, he must even look a little wistful. “It's a moirail thing. You touch their face or throat to help pacify them.”  
  
“Was he upset?”  
  
“No,” Karkat confesses, dropping his hand and lowering his gaze. “He was asleep. At least I thought he was.”  
  
Rose screws up their expression a little and he shrinks, hiding his face beneath the hand he lifts to his forehead.  
  
“Look, I know, alright? I'm not saying it wasn't fucked up. I'd take it back if I could. I just keep feeling like my beatpump's going to explode if I have to look at him for another goddamn minute, and. I can't take it anymore.” He lets both arms rest folded on the table infront of him, and tries to look serious the next time he meets their eyes. “That's why I'm here. I'm going to put this out of my mind once and for all.”  
  
A look of concern has just long enough to creep onto Rose's face before the door opens-- the both of them turn to look as Kanaya steps into the room, carrying a load of treated furs over her shoulder. Once she sees him, Karkat stands from his chair with a sigh.  
  
“Kanaya, I have to talk to you.”  
  
She hefts the skins from the tannery onto a rack by the door, and looks him over, sending a glance to Rose's direction. “What about?”  
  
“Um. Can we go outside?”  
  
She's a little suspicious, he can see on her face. She looks again to Rose who offers a shrug and a turn of their mouth's corner to imply something he can only guess, and then she looks back, taking a deep breath through her nose. Wordless, she walks to the door and opens it for him, and the two of them head outside.  
  
“I have a problem,” he admits, first of all. Here on the front porch the light dapples down through the trees and hits her in spots, and she looks everything like the heroic matron he hopes her to be. “I need your help. I want you to auspitice me and Gamzee.”  
  
Her eyes squint up at that, and her folded arms drop against her hips. “What did you do?”  
  
“He-- he was in a lot of pain today, and he got scared, in the fields, you know? He wasn't-- no, don't look like that, he wasn't going to do anything. He was just scared.” He can hear the desperation in his own voice. “I don't know why I did it.” An absolute lie. He'd done it because pity had flooded his heart like a broken dam. “I just-- he had this knife and he was slicing his hand open with how he held it, he looked-- so-- I--”  
  
There's finally a look of understanding on her expression, if that's what it is. She seems worried, and lowers her voice to ask; “Is everyone okay?”  
  
“What? Yeah. Everything's fine.” He still covers his face with a groan, trying to rub some of the tension out of his temples. “Except for me. I _pacified_ him, Kanaya. And it worked-- I mean, it really, really worked. He melted like grubcream in summer.”  
  
Her concern is now absolute confusion. It seems to warrant further explanation, so he keeps going, listening to his speech getting more and more strained.  
  
“I'm not going to take him back, okay? I'm not a complete idiot. But I just-- there's something wrong with me. Seeing him every day is too much. I need your help.”  
  
“He can live in his own hive, Karkat.”  
  
Just thinking about him in that cold, hideous place makes Karkat's skin crawl more than a little, and he looks at her with what he hopes is something that makes his distress obvious, almost piteous. He's entertaining just the slightest fantasy she'll fill that quadrant herself, and fidelity alone will keep his grubby mitts in check. “Kanaya, I can't send him back there. I saw it, and-- listen, that's not what I want.” He holds out both palms upwards, tries to get as close as he can to begging. “He shouldn't have to suffer just because I can't keep my stupid, ugly hands to myself.”  
  
Something happens. In a moment, she looks and sounds angry in a way that almost chills him, with the slitted pupils of her yellow eyes. “But you expect me to fill your ashen quadrant?”  
  
“Well-- no, I mean, not if you don't want to-- I.” He doesn't know what to say. He feels pressured by the heat of her gaze and his attempts to fix it only bring one thing to mind. “I just need someone to. Keep me in line, you know. And I feel like-- if not that, maybe we could be...”  
  
A faint glow flickers in her skin, and her shoulders tense. He sees immediately that he said the wrong thing.  
  
“Go home.” She says it in the flattest tone possible, as unquestionable as the beat of daylight on the trees. “Right now.”  
  
He falters. “I-”  
  
“Before I really get upset.”  
  
That's not what he'd expected. And it's nothing like the patience he'd been hoping for; he stands there waiting for something else to happen. When it does, it's still not what he'd wanted. Kanaya retreats back into the house and closes the door, leaving him outside with the echo of the stupid, stupid thing he'd said and a new ache in his heart. Alone, he folds his arms over his chest, making fists into either sleeve of his sweater.  
  
Then he starts walking home.  
  
There's been too many disasters in a life, let alone a day, that are fair to have. When he's finally in the safety of his living room, he goes to the farthest chair at the table and sits himself down, putting his back to the wall and his face in his hands-- then down against his folded arms, blotting his eyes on his sweater. The moment stretches on long and quiet, and he counts the threads of the cloth, picking gently at the pearls of lint that rise up from the surface like trees.  
  
Timid footsteps pad down from upstairs. He looks up and sees Gamzee, and Gamzee stares back. He doesn't bother to hide it, not even when he sees that look on the clown's face. Gamzee leaves almost immediately, retreating into the kitchen.  
  
Typical. _Better._ His thoughts drain hopelessly into the pit in his heart. He can't blame a single one of them. No one deserves to have to pity him; not Gamzee, not Kanaya, not--  
  
A cup of tea is put in front of him. It's hot, fresh; Gamzee must have had the kettle on the stove ever since he got home, waiting for him. He doesn't dare look up. He doesn't want to see that soft, sorry expression. But he takes the drink, hands shaking, and holds it close.  
  
Narrow, lavender fingers rest just so on his forearm, and he reaches over to wrap his own hand about them. Maybe to pull them away, at first, but that's not what happens. He stays there and feels them in his grip like it's his last tether to the world, so it seems wrong to let him go. His thumb even reaches under to stroke along the wounded palm, finding the shallow furrow cut into the flesh. It's not bleeding much anymore.  
  
Gamzee sits down beside him, and doesn't say a word. Not even when Karkat finishes the drink, takes the cup back to the kitchen, and goes upstairs to be alone.

  
  
\---

  
  
There's a gathering in town that night, so he cleans himself up, and tries to gather his composure enough for a public appearance. Gamzee lingers, but not with his usual reluctance. His eyes are big and open, and they watch while Karkat pulls on his sweater. He doesn't even feel uncomfortable, so much. He's busy trying to deal with that weight in his chest.  
  
“You can come with, you know,” he offers.  
  
Gamzee lifts his chin from his knees, and slowly shakes his head.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
He walks alone to the meeting, watching the sky go from a dull pink to its deep and lingering blue by the time he arrives. Steeling himself, he opens the door and helps set up for the inevitable bickering that will be to follow.  
  
The rats are taken care of, at least. The cats seem to be effective; one of them perches itself on the rafters, twitching its tail and watching him with big, yellow eyes. He's reminded vaguely of Kanaya, but the similarities stop just before its coat of black fur. It keeps a vigil over the others as they pour in to the council, and the meeting begins, discussing the current numbers of their food stores, and the weather, and the accomplishments of the technology houses next door.  
  
He leads the meeting half-aware. He's trying not to meet anybody's eye, least of all Sollux or Kanaya's, and intermittently prods discussion only after being prompted to. There's finally a topic that pulls him out of his stupor.  
  
“What happened to Gamzee?”  
  
He looks up. The question is asked by John, of all people, his arm raised and his expression curious. There's a silence that falls over the room, and Karkat thinks for a while on how to most easily dismiss the topic.  
  
Kanaya is the one that saves him. “I've handled that. We have more important things to discuss. Change of topic, please.”  
  
“Oh my god,” Eridan's voice sounds bored, rather than scandalized. So the next thing, uttered in similar deadpan, doesn't surprise him. “He's dead, isn't he.”  
  
All the same, the protest is in his mouth before he can help it. “NO, he's not dead.” It's too loud to be convincing, and Eridan shakes his head in mock astonishment.  
  
“Well _**that**_ settles it.”  
  
“He's not dead,” Jane confirms. “Me and Sollux saw him at work just this morning.”  
  
Karkat tenses, but that's all she shares. The rest of them fall into silence that's almost satisfied before John figures to explain the inquiry, raising his hand a second time-- god knows why. Some kind of earth habit that's spread to the feebler minds of his own kind, like sarcasm and polka music.  
  
“Well, I ask because he hasn't showed up to any meetings since-- well, you know! And his house has been empty.”  
  
“Snooping arooooooound, Egbert?”  
  
“Yeah yeah, like I haven't had enough clown business! No thank you.”  
  
Eridan turns around to join the conversation. “It's a moot point. The clown hasn't shown up in a month; where is Maryam hiding him, the broom closet?”  
  
“He's living with Karkat.”  
  
Tavros' voice comes out clear and solid, enough that everybody hears it. Karkat waits for all eyes to slowly drift back to him, and he catches Tavros' apologetic expression the next time he looks up. So at least he realizes the exact kind of beans that he's spilled.  
  
He's waiting for somebody to say something, but nobody does. It's Eridan that reacts first, raising both hands into a slow, unimpressed clap. That stings-- he's about to tell the fucker off when Terezi stands from her chair and moves to the center aisle, silencing everyone else in the process. In the second it takes him to react, she's already out, and he has to hop off the low stage and dart through the chairs after her, pushing the doors out of his way.  
  
He stumbles out into the road and looks in each direction, finding her to his left, and jogging to catch up.  
  
“Hey, wait!”  
  
She whips around, tip of her cane flying just short of his nose, and he scrabbles backwards. He stands that distance while her red eyes stare him down, flickering in the light of the lanterns on the wall and full of her wounded disposition. For all the thoughts in his head, he can't speak.  
  
“ _What_? What are you going to say?”  
  
He stammers. “I. It's not like that, Terezi, not with him.” Her expression was softer for just one moment, almost benevolent, but in a second it's over. She's visibly underwhelmed, and tries to turn to leave again. He tries, once more, to stop her. “Wait, Terezi, goddammit-- hear me out.”  
  
When he reaches for her shoulder, she shoves him away, swatting aside his arm with her wrist. He steps back, and she crosses her cane between them like a barrier. “God-- stop it!! What are you trying to _do!_?”  
  
“I just--” He's at a loss for words, desperate, and he can see her discomfort. It's the same as before, and it spirals quickly out of his grip; “I care about what you want, here. I don't want you to feel like I don't.”

 

  
  
“What _I_ want?” She sounds incredulous, and she moves towards him-- he backs away in a panic, and flinches as she swipes the cane forward until it smacks down over his shoulder, pointing towards the east. “You know what I want!? I want you to bring me his _goddamn head_ on a pike. Huh? What now? Do you give a crap _now_?”

"I--"

"I don't care _what_ you do! Just leave me _alone!_ "  
  
He's stuck under the threat of those words, long enough that she finally has time to withdraw and he doesn't persue her. His feet remain rooted firmly to the middle of the road even as he slowly becomes aware of the crowd that watches from just outside of the doorway, and he looks between them and the darkness of the rest of the town, blotting his eyes on his sleeve. Eventually he turns away, walking past a concerned stare from Nitram and out into the darkness.  
  
Kanaya walks in the other direction.  
  
The rest of the crowd is still dull with shock and unsure what to do, so she splits from it early to follow the direction Terezi had gone in. She hadn't gone far-- The poor girl is there in the patch of grass across from the building’s west wall, sitting with her back to the steps of the library. Before she can speak, a presence floats just behind her, so she turns to face the tagalong.  
  
Sollux is standing there at the corner of the storage hall. He gives a look to say that the reason why is obvious, and folds his arms, as if awaiting for instruction.  
  
“Could you make sure nobody else follows.” She requests. And, after a thought; “Especially not Serket.”  
  
“Can do.” He says. “You're going to talk to her?”  
  
“Yes.” She looks him over, as if assessing a threat. “You too?”  
  
“I just want to make sure she's okay. That was rough.”  
  
Kanaya nods gently, but there's nothing more to say.  
  
Terezi hides her face with the back of her wrist when Kanaya approaches, rubbing it up against her wet eyes. The bright, cherry glasses are gripped in the other hand, and the cane lies in the grass at her feet. She waits, kneeling down infront of her, before speaking. It'd be better to let her start first, maybe. Sollux keeps his distance, checking occasionally for anyone else curious enough to follow around to this side of the building.  
  
“Oh my god,” she mutters finally, through a hand. “Kanaya. Why did I say that? I don't want to kill anybody. Kanaya, I don't want to kill anybody.”  
  
“It's okay,” She reassures. “I know you don't. We all know you don't.”  
  
The realization seems to dawn on her slowly, the reality of the exchange creeping like vines up into her expression. She drops her hands, looks up-- the defeated sag of her shoulders and the tone of her reply is fit to break her heart. “Kanaya, you have to go stop him.”  
  
“He's not going to do anything,” She promises. “It's fine.”  
  
“Just go talk to him. For me?” There's a shell of composure forming back around the words, though Kanaya can still see the cracks. “Just-- don't let anything happen. I don't want that.”  
  
Kanaya stands, slowly, pulling the collar of her cloak a little tighter about her shoulders. In the night air, she knows it looks menacing, and lets herself stew a little in the dark imagery. It fits the gentle brooding of her mood. “Oh, I'll talk to him alright.”  
  
Seeing Terezi calm, she turns to leave, stopping just before Sollux. “Make sure she gets home unbothered. If you don't mind.”  
  
“Not at all.” He walks past her and she listens to the exchange as she leaves, feeling a bit of relief at Captor's superior consolatory talents. _“He just says stupid shit sometimes, Terezi. Ignore him. Let's get you home.”_  
  
Her speed and the shortcut she takes over the southern hills outpaces Karkat significantly, and with how her nature glides easily through treetops and underbrush she's at his door long before he could hope to arrive. It opens, and not at all to her surprise Gamzee sits there waiting like a barkfiend in the chair closest to the door, eyes alight in confusion when she steps inside.  
  
“Somethin wrong, sister?” There's a note of fear in his voice, one she hadn't heard before without the context to consider. She shakes her head, then gestures quickly up the stairs.  
  
“I need to speak with Karkat when he arrives. In private.”  
  
She can see him be vaguely uncomfortable, but to his credit, he obeys with little more than a look of concern over his shoulder and a reluctant slouch. She waits until every last footfall is done, and the creak of him falling into the bed upstairs, before she moves to take the chair he left empty.  
  
And she waits.

  
  
\----

  
  
He's sniffling by the time he gets home. His head is full of options, all of them bitter in his considerations. In the end, it doesn't matter how hard he tries-- all of his resources fail him, and he doesn't have a plan for what he'll do when he comes home and Gamzee sees the red flush around his eyes or hears the hitch in his voice. He feels so stupid, crying.  
  
He has to kick him out, maybe. It's the only way-- but even that fizzles somewhere, because his resolve is so weak and every thump of his heart comes along with the memory of holding him, cradling his wounded hand in his own fingers. Both things can't be true, but they are in his beatpump, and the wrongness of it coats his feelings.  
  
When he opens the door, the problem is temporarily irrelevant. She waits there with crossed legs and folded arms and a gaze like iron, and his waffling is cut off at the head once it meets him. He blinks, a few times, then finds a scrap of nerve in himself.  
  
Then, he's worried. “Gamzee--”  
  
“Is fine.” She interrupts him, standing. “We need to talk. Outside.”  
  
He's reluctant. Scared, of something. He knows the clown must be floating up by the top of the stairs, eavesdropping; he doesn't know if he wants to have the discussion with another witness or not. “Fine,” he confesses, in the end-- out of weakness more than decision. He wants this to be over.  
  
She leads the way, and he trods unwillingly out of the warmth and safety of his house and out into the night air. The grass beyond the road is growing taller, and she leads him out into it, too far for anyone inside to hear him. He distracts himself with the peppering of blue stars and the songs of crickets, waiting for the first verbal blows.  
  
It's not a verbal blow that comes to him. Kanaya turns once and strikes him across the face, and that stuns him more than any other thing.  
  
“Ow!” He looks at her with the proper amount of indignation, cupping a palm over his cheek. It had been an open hand, but it still hurts. “What the _fuck_ was that for?”  
  
“It's no worse than what you're doing to yourself.” There's a hint of regret, and he sees it for only a moment. “I am _ashamed_ , Karkat, and I am so sorry that I have to be.”  
  
She's angry, and it's more obvious than ever. She stares him down as if she wants him to defend himself. And he wishes he knew how.  
  
“I'm-- sorry about what I said to you, okay? I know it was crass. And selfish.”  
  
“It _was_ ,” she agrees. “But I'm not angry at you anymore.”  
  
Not about _that_ , she means. He can tell from the remaining chill of her demeanor, and he keeps his own arms wrapped about his middle and his hands curled into his sweater. It doesn't matter, for the moment, that he's nine, that they won the game. Right now he's six and aberrant, and failing all over again, watching it crumble in his hands. He tries hard not to start crying; it seems just as typical of that child he was as the rest of this.  
  
“Listen to me. I can't bear to repeat this, because it is cruel. Are you listening?”  
  
He nods, biting his lip.  
  
“We love you very, very much, Karkat. But you are just--” She raises both hands and curls her fingers, closing both eyes. “You are a disaster. And a fool. Which would all be perfectly forgivable if you just _knew when to fucking quit_.”  
  
He's not offended so much as vulnerable, and it hits some part in him that's already taut and screaming and he finally finds the words. “I'm trying!” He sounds shriller than he likes, less comfortable in his body than he's ever been. “I'm _trying_ , Kanaya, I'm trying so hard, and everything always goes wrong--”  
  
“ _Too_ hard,” she hisses, crossing both arms tightly over her chest. “That poor girl is not going to assuage your guilt _._ You pity him. The least you could do is own up to it.”  
  
She's out of words. He can tell because she creaks to a stop like a great sighing locomotive, bracing thumb and forefinger to the corners of her temple while the night air chirps around her. That moment stretches out too long, in the cold and the dark, and if it weren't for the bright glow of her skin they'd be arguing in blackness.  
  
Finally, she speaks. “Do you know why you're our leader? You, not Terezi, not me?”  
  
He falters. He always thought it was because he asked. Because nobody else wanted the responsibility- it was one giftbeast's maw he hadn't meant to peer into. When he does, there's no good answer waiting for him; only memory of every time he'd been cruel, or imposing, or cold. He'd wanted so badly to defy every red drop in his veins. But he knows, somehow, that it's a rhetorical question. So he waits.  
  
“Because you _'_ re not like us. You of all trolls know better than to question anyone's potential. Even when you pretend to.” It's gentler than he expected, but it still makes him feel sick and sad. “But you can't even extend that same favor to yourself. You make it everybody else's problem.”  
  
He wraps his head around it. It's cold, and he shivers out here in the night, and he wants to go inside and forget, and through all of that it sits in his mind like a rock. “I don't know what I'm supposed to do.”  
  
“Why do you think I have any answers for you?” It's the first thing that catches in his pan, and the idea dissolves and sizzles like a pad of butter on a frying plateau. He sees, finally, how she's as young as him, and as preoccupied. He's sorry he never noticed, before. “Karkat, I can hardly make sense of how much to eat, and when. I can't be the one to clean up your mess. I don't _want_ to be.”  
  
She's not withdrawn when she says it, arms hanging out at the elbow and palms upward. “God help me, Karkat, I am so fond of you. But I do _not_ pity you. And neither does Terezi.”  
  
He knows that's true.  
  
He hadn't wanted to admit it. To him, they were somehow impervious. In his head, he sees himself in the past, daring to be _disappointed_ in her when she'd fallen short of that. That door is long closed, but if it were open, he'd reach back and shake himself.  
  
“I'm so sorry,” He mutters again.  
  
“I know.”  
  
“I-- I'm not asking because I want you to absolve me of responsibility. I swear. I just-- I want your opinion, because you're clearly a lot smarter than I am.” He wants her to know he understands. “Do you think-- What do you think I should do with Gamzee.”  
  
There's a moment where he thinks she's going to be angry about the question, but it never comes to pass. She shrugs, with lingering exasperation, but more than anything, indiference. “Do _whatever you'd like_ to, Karkat. Just don't expect her to tell you it's right.” And then, somewhat sheepishly, she opens them and holds them out in front of her in invitation. He doesn't know what she's doing, immediately, until it finally occurs to him and he walks into the hug. She's freezing cold, either from the hue of her blood or the state of her undeath, but he's still comforted even in the stiffness of the gesture.  
  
“I'm sorry I hit you,” she says, sounding honest.  
  
“Yeah.” He grumbles it into her solar plexus, the highest point of her he can reach. “I know.”  
  
She withdraws from him, and once he reassures her he's okay she turns to go home, leaving him there in the grass before his house. He doesn't want to go back inside right away, because the moment alone is something he needs to take. The night is cold, but otherwise comforting, full of the sound of bugs and the sky large and deep above him. Their sky. It stretches up forever, all the way to those stars that fill the blackness. To see that far suddenly tells him how small he is.

 

  
  
There's nothing out here but bugs and stars, so it's safe to cry. The ache is so much that he finally lets it go. It's the sort of stupid, layered thing that comes in quick sniffs of breath and pain in his throat, constantly rubbing tears into his sweater. He heads back into the house. By the time he gets to the door, he's making short noises every time he breathes in, and it wavers back out in something grossly unsteady and unguarded.  
  
He hates himself. He really does-- he doesn't deserve to cry, or even to walk into the comfort of his home, but it's all he has to do. Gamzee is waiting for him once he comes inside, in one of the chairs by the dining table, and stands quickly once he sees him.  
  
“Brother.” He comes up to him, and Karkat holds out a hand almost out of fear-- even six years hadn't broken his old habits, and the tears are as red as they ever were. In a moment he realizes the futility of trying to hide them, and lets his arm fall back to his side. He's so tired, and the feelings in him are nearing catastrophe.  
  
“What happened at your face?” Gamzee's voice rises over the last few words, and his eyebrows knit together in concern. In a moment he sweeps away into the kitchen and picks up one of the rags, wetting a corner of it in the basin.  
  
He's about to manage protest before Gamzee comes back, but it doesn't take. So Gamzee sits the two of them down by the table and puts that rag up into the redness of his cheek, trying to wipe off the sting. It's cool and comforting, and the moment suddenly hits him in perfect clarity that Gamzee is sitting across from him and fussing like a lusus. Like he knows something is wrong, and it's pulled all his worry out.  
  
“Kanaya hit me,” he says, blinking. It's weird to realize that, too. Gamzee's expression drops from focus to a sort of stern horror, and he leans away. He's quick to defend her. “I was being an ass. Somebody needed to tell me off.”  
  
Gamzee's mouth closes slowly into a frown, and his eyes drift away to consider the floor. They're sitting so close that he can see how the lantern light reflects in each purple iris, and he watches that, thinking it makes him almost pretty. “That ain't any kind of motherfucking reason to hit a brother.”  
  
Karkat blinks, and thinks it over. “No. I guess not.”  
  
Gamzee goes back to messing with his red face, redder now for other reasons-- drying away the wetness left there, and very carefully, at the corner of one eye where the tears rest. Karkat shuts both of them so he doesn't have to see the look in Gamzee's face, and sets his palm against that long purple forearm to push it away.  
  
“Gamzee.” And he works up the nerve to actually meet his eyes, before he speaks again. The confession bubbles up from his insides to his outsides, but it's true, and he can't withhold it anymore. “I want you back.”  
  
Gamzee stops, bringing his hand away. It stuns them both, but Karkat has the benefit of knowing the truth beforehand. Once it's out of his mouth, he repeats it, with confidence. “I want you back. I want to be moirails again.”  
  
He backs away like from a threat, the chair protesting its way across the wooden floor. Gamzee stands at a meter's distance with claws resting over his mouth, an expression like he's heard something grave. He shakes his head, once, and turns towards the stairs-- but escapes only so far that his own pan seems to stop him, and he turns, both arms hung at his side.  
  
“Brother, brother.” He paces, brings both palms up over his eyes, rubs in agitation and then drops his hands again. “Brother, no, why _now_...” His attempt to look stern is not successful-- not with the hurt on his face and in his voice, making it warble. The modulation is familiar, and it only makes Karkat's heart hurt worse. “How come you gotta do at this _now_ , motherfucker-- you think it goes away what I motherfucking been done to?”  
  
“No,” he says, hardly understanding. But something in him does, and it keeps him talking. “No, I don't. But you don't have to _stay_ like this.”  
  
“And what if I say no,” he says. Gamzee keeps pulling away, hugging his arms to himself, staring with unease, with panic. “Are you gonna kick me out, you gonna make at me to go back to what I was.”  
  
“No,” he repeats, more desperate. “Gamzee, no, no. For fuck's sake, I pity you. And I'm so, sorry-- I know I fuck up, I know how stupid this is, but I don't care. If I can have you back, that's what I want.” The words aren't excuses, or lies, and the honesty encourages him to continue. “I think about-- about sending you back, and I can't. I just can't do it. I can't leave you behind again.”  
  
“You did.” It's wounded, but not accusatory. “You _did,_ brother.”  
  
There's something off, and he finds he doesn't care what it is. “But I'm here now.”  
  
Gamzee is out of objections. He tries words a few times, but they all stop just at his throat and there's just silent little gasps before he finally closes his lip between his teeth. He doesn't move, or protest, eyes looking around for an escape. Karkat knows better than to approach.  
  
But then it fades. His arms fall slowly from where they wrap about his own middle-- Gamzee puts his claws around his elbow and squeezes tightly, afraid, but his eyes are clear, and they focus on Karkat with all of the yearning he'd never seen before. So he takes one step, and when Gamzee is still, he takes another, and finally comes close enough to folds his arms around that scrawny chest. Gamzee feels so much thinner when wrapped up in his bulk and in his sweater, like a sapling, and when Karkat rests a cheek below the narrow shelf of his collar he can feel the thin whine reverberate against everywhere they touch.  
  
“Shhhh,” he goes, testing-- he raises the backs of his fingers just between the jut of his shoulderblades and drags the knuckles against Gamzee's spine, and in response he shudders, and whines again-- arms twist up out from between them and hang around his shoulders, holding him in return. He shuts his eyes and feels the purring start, in his own chest, and it's a relief-- so much, it's a relief, that his eyes sting again. “Oh my god, I missed you. I missed you so much. Why did you _leave_.”  
  
“I ain't never wanted to leave from you, brother.”  
  


  
  
He thinks to himself that's not how things went, but it doesn't matter because soon he's crying and Gamzee's hands are going through his hair and patting his shoulders, and a soothing, low shush and rumble is coming out of the narrow thorax he's clinging to. It's like magic. He suddenly isn't afraid of crying at all, and it's as simple as anything he's ever done. Before he has too much time to explore the feeling, Gamzee is herding him towards the stairs, and he takes the offer.  
  
He lets him go and starts up towards the bed. It's not a pile, but it's damn close. He's the one to sit there first and direct Gamzee beside him, raising hands immediately to his cheeks and doing his damned best to shush, and stroke the heel of his palm carefully along his painted jaw, and soothe him-- Gamzee seems reluctant to crumble, but he knows there's a deep well of pain, in there. He's desperate to get to it, to scoop it out over time.  
  
It finally occurs to him that he's been an idiot, so he stops for a moment-- Gamzee interrupts his purring to listen, curious. Worried. “So-- are we-- are you? Will you?”  
  
The worry dissolves. Vulnerability is still filling him, but when he shrinks himself to fit there against Karkat's chest, curled under his chin, there's nothing to be done but fold his arms over him and know what the answer is before it's spoken. “Yeah, brother. If I'm the thing you're wanting.”  
  
“You are.” He feels the purrs that match in their chests, and the exhaustion in his body, and gently turns so as to lay them both down. “Come here.”  
  
With a little guidance, Gamzee uncurls from the meek ball he'd made himself at Karkat's front, and can be convinced to look him in the eye where they both rest on the pillow. He wants to watch the relief and the hurt and the fear in those eyes, knowing he's going to be there to help from now on. Karkat meets his palm to Gamzee's cheek, over and over, and then-- with a hesitation, not wanting to scare him-- moves in slowly, in parts, until he can have their lips meet.  
  
“I'm sorry,” he says, almost immediately. “That's too soon. I didn't-”  
  
Gamzee's claws lift to the fabric over his shoulder and tighten down into it, looking for an anchor. His eyes are bright and wide, afraid, maybe, but open. “Please, brother.”  
  
It doesn't make sense that Gamzee scoots closer and waits for him to act. Karkat kisses him a second time, and a third. It's as bizarre to him as it's always been, that this ugly, miserable red thing he lives in is the thing the troll in front of him wants to be kissed by, to move closer to. But it's too much after too long for either of them to know better, desperate for pacification to the point where in a minute they're both nuzzling and clinging at each other's shirts. He has the sense that something, suddenly, is over. Something he hadn't even known he was enduring.  
  
“I've got you,” he promises. Gamzee's stomach is still full between them, and he thinks of that, too, and feels more defensively about it than ever before. “I've got you now. It's going to be okay. It's all going to be okay.”  
  
They work down into a nice calm, him stroking his palm up and down Gamzee's side, with Gamzee's own hands up along his cheeks and smoothing away any remaining tears even as he blushes. Their pans are fogging into mush before too long and there's no hope of staying awake; so they tangle quietly between themselves, and Karkat pulls up the blankets around them. He works his hand up under the back of Gamzee's shirt and flattens his palm to the uneven skin, tracing scars, following the curve of ribs. His moirail coils there against his chest as before, and save for bits of weeping, purrs himself into sleep and quiet.  
  
Karkat stays up for a little while more, listening to the crickets, and the night birds, and the dull noises of sleep that are put into his chest. He feels a sense, finally, of having done right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was 14k words up there, give or take. Phew!
> 
> Thanks for getting through it. All the cards are on the table now, narratively speaking, but there are still a few plays to be made. I hope you'll stick around for them.
> 
> And another thanks for all your encouragement up to this point!


	9. Dragon Games Pt 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is taking FAR too long to write. As a thank you to the support from people who have read up until now, I'm going to be posting the first few scenes early, and hopefully finishing the rest before next year. Thank you everyone!
> 
> Edit: Alright, here it is, in completion!

She's watching the clouds drift above the glowing pink of the trees, and she's not blind. Here beneath the canopy the glare of the sun can't hurt her, and she's not tired from waking early. She'd walked here from her room. She remembers her own footfalls on the path, crunching the fallen leaves beneath her shoes-- she remembers the crispness of the air and the gentle howl of the sky as the sunset winds crawl in from the east. Some distance in the opposite direction, the egg of her lusus pins down the world from oblivion.

But that's not right. The meteors have already fallen, and the sun did hurt her. The forest burned long ago. Once she remembers, it stops mattering whether or not she blinks, and the whole thing is a mess of sugar and citrus on her tongue. She loses its clarity in the way she used to back when she was first learning. _Careful, sweetheart, find the shapes. The places where things change. It's fun!_

The airy voice of the dragon is in her head, sounding familiar. But the advice doesn't help now as it did then. It's not certain where she is; things give way no matter how many times she licks the back of her teeth, until her tongue hurts. But her cane is in her hands, and somehow she's standing, and she follows the road.

Things are clearer by the time her cane taps on yellow bricks. Clear enough that she can see a figure waiting for her on the top of a curving bridge.

Latula smiles to greet her, with the same row of vicious teeth. “There you are, girl. Sheesh, you take your time, you know?”

Terezi stops, closing her fingers around her cane. She waits, but nothing else is said.

“You're not really here,” she says, after a while. “There are no bubbles anymore. So I'm dreaming this.”

“You were _always_ dreaming.” She grins bright and white past her perfectly blackened lips, and trots down the stairs, gripping her board by her waist. Terezi can taste the stencilwork of the cherry-red dragon with surprising sharpness. “Check me out, I'm going to get this rail here!”

She does, though there's some difficulty in following the teal of her outfit down the bottom half of the railing. Terezi can still hear the solid clatter of the board, the roll of wheels, and the resounding whooping of a successful land.

“I mean I'm making all of this up in my head.”

Latula's voice is distant, at first, but it comes closer. “ _Duh._ That's how it works.” The pearl-white of the board jumps back up into her grip with a practiced stamp of Latula's red boot. But it's all a blur, slowly darkening.

“I can't see.”

“You don't have to. I taught you that, right?” It's cheery enough that she can imagine the continuing smile. “I gotta say, though. It's okay now. You don't need me any more.”

There's some quality to her voice, like the dryness of fall wind, that Terezi immediately understands. The connection makes her a little sad, but somehow too strange to pull apart. “I think I do.”

“You already won, sweetheart. It's over.”

“It doesn't feel like that, though.” Her own protest sounds so young and desperate, but she does wish she had her lusus again. She wishes she had somebody that big and knowing to give her answers and show her new ways to feel, and even at nine sweeps it's hardly enough to know what to do with the mess in front of her. “What if I do the wrong thing?”

“Oh, you will. But that's the best part. It won't matter. You'll recover. It's all up to you, now, and you'll do just fine.”

She wakes up in her room, immediately breathing in the scent of the white curtains and the green outside. The smell is fresh from a new rain.

When she eats breakfast, the world disappears into a fuzz of bright colors, swimming between yellow and green, dipping to orange only when she swallows. It's nice to have the world disappear, but then she remembers the red burn of soda, how it had been close to what she was looking for-- the sear of color in her own eyes, the last thing she'd seen made of light.

She bites into the orange again, and keeps it there on her tongue purposefully until the citrus hurts. Maybe she can burn out those, too. Maybe the entire world will come away in a hot, aching fade, into that dullness that never goes away. 

That's a pointless attitude to take on breakfast, so she works the rest of the thing down and bunches the rind in a fist, walking out the door even while her world is sparkling bits of yellow. The misty air of morning hits her in a wave, cool and familiar. She knows where things are, here. She's had almost a quarter of a sweep to memorize the turns of corners under her hand. She cleanses her palate with a swipe of her tongue, breathes in, and waits for the forest to come into view. When she can place how far away the grass gives into trees, she lifts back her arm and launches the handful out into the forest. It's a speck of orange in her nose for a second, then there's only the woods, all salt and earth that clings to her gums.

 _You already won_? Big fucking help, she thinks.

She decides to spend the rest of the day in her room curled over books and nursing the ache left from yesterday. It was bad enough to lose it, but it had to have been in front of everyone. Every point of speculation coexists in her head, every nasty thing she can imagine that they might think. It's a knock on the door that finally pulls her from it.

Kanaya is waiting on the other side. She adjusts her cloak almost sheepishly, a gesture that looks a little odd on the height of her. “Can we talk?”

She doesn't see why not. Terezi lets her inside.

 

\----

 

“And that was the dream?”

“All of it that I remember,” she answers, rolling her thumb over the head of her cane. The dragon's white eye stares back, unblinking. “I-- Kanaya.”

She sits across the table, attentive and listening.

Terezi licks the back of her teeth before she speaks. “I miss my mom. Do you ever...”

The drop of Kanaya's shoulders betrays her thoughts as clearly as the gentle flicker of her skin. They share the quiet for a little while, uninterrupted by the nod of Kanaya's head. The difficulty of it all goes unspoken.

“That's not what you came here to talk about,” Terezi admits. “Last night-- no, I mean, some time before that. That's why it all happened. She finally did talk to me.”

Those bright, yellow eyes take on a menacing slit. She can taste even that subtle difference in the air. “Did she?”

“She told me it would be like this. I didn't-- I wasn't mad about anything you were doing. Or I didn't want to be. I can handle whatever bullshit Karkat gets up to, you know. If it were _only_ that.”

Kanaya, once more, has nothing to add. She seems to be thinking about something, staring straight past her and into the wall like a prowlfiend watches nut creatures through windows. Terezi doesn't feel ignored by it. It's like hunting with a dog at her side. So, she continues. “I know what she's trying to prove. She always does this-- she wants me to think we're the same, like we're different from everyone else. Like she's the only one on my side.” She twists her cane in her grip, palms clammy. “It's like she doesn't remember _anything_.”

“Yeah,” Kanaya offers, folding her arms under her chest. “I suppose the word I'd use is selective.”

Terezi scowls. “Then you're a hell of a lot nicer than I am.”

That rests in the air heavier than she'd intended, and it makes the troll in front of her go quiet. It's guilt, she thinks, that keeps Kanaya's tongue locked there behind her fangs, so she keeps wringing her hands in the silence.

“I'm just. I'm sick of her being right about me.”

“She's not.” Kanaya sits forward, a little urgently. “Whatever she told you, you can ignore her.”

“I can't,” She answers, lifting her arms to rest on the table. She leaves the staff there and instead uses her hands to brace up her chin, fingers over her mouth. She breathes in the scent of the room a few times, letting it all blur like it did in her dream. “Kanaya, there's-- there's something else. Something that's been bothering me. Something I haven't told anyone.”

The gravity of it makes her stomach drop even without saying a word, and if it weren't for the own conviction in her voice she'd back out of it. Maybe there is still a chance to withdraw, but it doesn't feel that way. Maryam is listening, calm and solid, and if she's careful about how she breathes she can't even tell what her expression is. That makes it easier to continue.

“Don't tell this to anybody. I'm about to tell you something really, really bad. Promise me, okay?”

Kanaya nods. “I promise.”

Terezi breathes in a few more times, then lowers her hands to fold together on the wood of the table.

“Gamzee-- when I.” She stops, licking her teeth again, swallowing back the reluctance. Kanaya watches soundlessly. “Before the game. When Vriska and I were kids, you remember. We killed people. We-- ...lots of them. I don't remember how many. More than-- more than anybody else ever did. Um--” She stops, hating the waver in her own voice, and blinking furiously. She keeps herself rigid. And continues.

“A lot of the time, she would pick them. I would do it, though.” There's a shake in the last syllable, and she hates it. It's sweeps too late, and only reminds her of how she hadn't felt that way about it at first. She sniffs back the threat of a sob, scrubs at the wetness on one cheek. “Most of the time I would do it. And-- sometimes. I. Sometimes, they would have this look. Like, right before I-” Her stomach sours at the thought, and her throat closes up. Kanaya still says nothing.

“I think. I think I knew what it meant.” She rubs her palm into the corner of each eye, determined to keep them dry. “I think I always knew. They weren't-- what she told me. They were afraid, and they never-- they never fought back, or.”

“You don't have to say it,” Kanaya offers. There's that note, low and sad, of understanding, of a sort of consolatory empathy that makes her sick.

“I _do._ ” Terezi can't smell anything for the leak of her nose and the tremor of her breath, and it's a hollow, scary feeling. “She picked them that way. And I killed them for her.” She can't find Kanaya's eyes there in the fog, but she tries to look up to meet them. Her voice is strong, now, and full of awful things. “He looked like that. There was this second, Kanaya. He looked _just like that_.”

Kanaya stays at a distance as the tears come, swiped over and over from her cheeks by her own hands. Both of them seem stuck where they are, though the sunlight of the morning is starting to come back into clarity on her tongue. Suddenly, she's angry.  
  
“I _hate_ her!” she confesses, rubbing her leaking nose into a wrist. “She didn't have to _lie_! She didn't have to-- If it was hard, I would have helped her-- If she'd just asked-- I would have--”

Kanaya stands from the table and comes around, and before she knows what's happening, before she can clear the shapes in her mouth, strong arms are coming about her and she finds herself with her chin against Kanaya's rumblespheres, held against that broad thorax. There is nothing, _nothing_ , she hates more than crying. So she does it bitterly, and with a toothy grimace. A cool, jade hand pets down her hair.

“Shhhhh. I know.”

“Never again,” she growls, between the cracks in her voice. “I'm. I'm never going to hurt anyone ever again. I don't care if they deserve it. I don't care if I have to die instead-- I'm never going to do it again.”

“You won't have to. I promise.” It's very firm, very matter-of-fact in the way it's said, and Terezi can almost forget that she's sucking down breaths in a way that shakes her thorax, where the noise is a shrill warble. Unsure, and without precedent, she raises her curled hands to meet along Kanaya's back. She can feel it, the next time Kanaya shushes her, low and smooth.

There's a pause between them, while she catches her breath. “I could bite her, if you wanted.”

“Oh my god, no.” But it's so dark that there's a spark of humor in her at it, and she clings to her companion a little tighter. Getting her bearings takes a little time, but once it does...

“This is what you came here to talk about.” She rubs a wet cheek down against Kanaya's shirt, still sniffing. The worst of it has already broken. “You-- you sneaky bitch.”

To her benefit, Kanaya does seem guilty, shrinking somewhat. “I was trying to find the right time to bring it up.”

“No,” Terezi agrees, with a sigh. “No, it's okay. You're terrible at hiding things.” She still can't see anything, but here she can feel and hear the thump of Kanaya's bloodpusher. It's funny-- she'd kind of imagined in her condition all of those things would be cold and still. But it goes on all the same under her ear. “You think you aren't, but you are.”

Kanaya just nods. In a little while, they pull apart, and she can clear her palate. Finally the shape of her comes back into clarity, a chalky white and an inky black. Her brain doesn't know what flavor to make of it right away, but it's something cream and licorice before long, strange and pleasant.

“I'm going to have to disappoint you,” she admits. “I'm not-- I don't want quadrants. Maybe not ever again.” She sniffs once more, and brings up the cleaner hand to dry her eyes on. She's going to start babbling if she's not careful, trying to make sense of the panic that threatens the borders of her heart. “I couldn't be a moirail to you. Not a good one, anyway. I couldn't offer you-- you know. Reciprocity.”

There does seem to be just a hint of disappointment, but Kanaya stills herself and rolls her shoulders, and there's a quiet offer made soon after.

“How about friends?”

“ _Friends_?” Terezi scoffs, at first, because there's something awfully sterile about it for the kind of exchange they just had-- Maryam's symbol is still damp with her gross, teal tears, even. “Like _human_ friends?”

It does, in some way, match the indiscriminate paleness of the whole gesture. Terezi catches herself on the logic of her own suggestion, and quiets, settling both hands in her lap.

“Well, maybe.” Kanaya leans on the table, and waits before she speaks again.

“I'm not sure I'd be any better at it. I don't have much of a track record, here.” There's that same note of shame that makes Terezi cringe, because it's too fair and too gentle, and what she wants more than anything is a stinging, critical nuance that can pull her apart. Somebody to do an emotional autopsy with-- not pity. Not something to apologize for her.

Kanaya continues all the same.

“So reciprocity, quadrants-- I'm saying, that's not what I need. I would rather just help you. Whatever that meant.”

“No obligations,” Terezi mutters. “No exclusivity. No soulmates, definitely.”

She can smell the relief on Kanaya's expression. “God, absolutely not. Fuck that.”

A grin breaks through her lips, despite everything, but the echoes of everything she's shared soon quiet it. Pale or not, she'd broken down, and it might happen again. And nothing else has changed.

“Rose feels the same way, you know.”

She looks up to meet the confession, but there's not a hint of meekness to Kanaya now. She's all firm conviction, and if it's a front, then it's a very, very good one. There's a genuine core of utilitarian necessity in the middle of her, with a decent troll wrapped around it. Terezi knows that-- still drying her eyes, thankful that Kanaya doesn't try to do it for her.

“You can talk to us anytime. Either of us.”

“Thanks,” She answers. “I'll remember that.”

It's hard to say anything after that, so the two of them stay there in the quiet. A hint of uncertainty creeps into Maryam's posture, from how her hand moves to grip the opposite elbow.

“What is it you'd like to do?”

She considers the dream, and sniffs back the last hint of her tears, feeling solid. It takes a while to remember exactly what it was she was told. In a moment, it solidifies, and she comes to the decision with a firmness allowed by what Kanaya had promised her. She even manages to be calm.

“The wrong thing.”

\----

When Gamzee wakes up, the bed is empty.

The room is quiet save for the pitter of rain on the window, but down the stairs there's plenty of clattering, and when Gamzee palms the mattress the spot retains none of Karkat's warmth. In the solitude, he considers his options. There's only one thing he wants to do, so he grabs one of the blankets to wrap over his arms and shoulders and braves down the stairs. The air is chilled by the mist of a wet morning, and under his hand, the grooves in the wall feel big enough to hide in.

When he gets to the bottom, Karkat is cooking, the stove warm enough for him to feel in his thin legs. He waits for a while but goes unnoticed as Karkat darts between the pan and the cutting board.

Gamzee swallows twice against the stiffness in his throat, and finally guesses at a sound to make; “Hey.”

Karkat startles, whirling about. “Yeah!? I mean-- hey. Good evening.” It's not evening, but force of habit, memories of a dead world-- he can't be blamed. They share a look that echoes the exchanges of last night, but instead of coming closer Karkat gestures to the stove with a flap of his hand. “I was going to cook you something, but I fucked it up twice already. The mushrooms kept burning before the potatoes even got warm. I tried to pick them out, like an idiot--” on the gesturing hand, Gamzee spots the red tip of Karkat's index finger, and slants his brow.

“You got some motherfucking red out.”

“What?” He balls the hand into a fist, like he's trying to hide it. “No, I'm fine. Just stupid. I can't believe I wasted so much.” His words come out quickly, once he has someone to speak to. “As if we weren't already close enough to starving, I had to go and fuck up breakfast. Of course I did. Fuck, Gamzee, we're all going to die because--” He reaches for the pan, lifts it once, and lets it thump back down against the stove with a rattle. The noise makes him flinch. “Because I _can't cook potatoes_.”

The bags under his eyes are heavy as ever, and they seem to brim with the threat of tears in the usual way. He doesn't stand a chance in hell, in the end.

Still bundled into himself, Gamzee walks closer, gently plucking the spoon from Karkat's grip. He lets it go and watches as Gamzee stirs the contents of the skillet, tipping over pieces to consider them. A spot of oil added in the pan sets everything glistening just enough to cook right. It even smells better.

He continues to cook under that intense gaze. Karkat's stammering fills the pause. “I've just mostly-- before we got here, the crab would cook-- before the game, I mean...” He confesses finally, watching. “So I'm...”

The sentence fades. When he turns back to look, Karkat seems stuck-- he's still wide-eyed and fizzling, raising a hand to his hair. He speaks again, once. “Uh--”

Oh, no. He comes forward and slips his arms over Karkat's shoulders, resting his chin over and between those two stubby horns. Karkat's arms clap around his back, holding him tight while the words flood out again bright and rigid in his ears.

“I wanted--.” Karkat stops, swallows. “I wanted to do something good for you. Just one good thing.”

“Just breakfast,” he mutters. He lifts a hand as if to stroke through that mess of hair.

“No, it's not _just breakfast_.” Still, Karkat burrows down into the embrace of the thin arms that hold him, hiding his face in Gamzee's shirt. “We have to talk. I've been such a fucking idiot, and I made the biggest fool of myself any pan-scrabbling asshole ever has or could have hoped to, and it's a nightmare. You wouldn't believe the stupid, awful things I said to everybody. That's not even counting all the shit I did to _you_.”

There's a small lurch in the center of his chest. In the end he says nothing.

He pulls away, and because of the ache and the weight his belly puts in his legs, grips the counter to settle onto his knees. Karkat watches in uncertainty until he reaches back up and puts his palms on either side of that soft face, stroking his thumbs carefully under both dark circles. The light from the window is cold and peppered with raindrops, making him look surreal.

“What are you--”

“Helpin you to get your chill on, brother.” He feels his own voice near cracking, but he's not pushed away. Karkat's gaze is narrowed and scrupulous, sure, but he has hope that's him being defensive. He hopes, also, that he doesn't look too desperate. But there was a reason he'd sunk to the floor.

“I just.” Karkat seems to chew on an idea, the anger in his expression dimming. He listens, terrified, but tries not to stop stroking that cheek. It's new to him all over again, but he can remember how it goes... “I'm tired of fucking up.”

Karkat steps closer and holds Gamzee there against his stomach. It's sudden and sends a crackle down his spine into his shoulders, but not a bad one at all, and he has to bite his own lip to repress the threatening purr. He stays very, very still as Karkat speaks.

“I want to go full-fucking horned into this, Gamzee. If it goes wrong, It's not going to be for lack of trying. I mean--” He catches on an implication, and starts over. “I mean that it wouldn't be that I didn't try hard enough for you. Because I'm going to. I'm going to wring every fucking drop of moirallegiance from this miserable bullshit-- not you, I mean-- you're not-- I just. Holy shit, what am I talking about.”

Karkat looks like he's watching a scuttlewreck, flattening his palms to his temples. “I want things to make sense again. I just need one little thing to work out--”

He wraps his arms back around Karkat's middle, cutting him off. “I hear you. It's alright, brother.”

Karkat tenses up in what feels more like surprise than indignation-- and lets it back out in a sigh.“No, you bulgehump, I was talking. I'm trying to bare my fucking soul here, aren't you listening? Isn't that what you're _supposed_ to do?”

“I'm listening,” he parrots, accepting the disdain. “I got all kinds of recollection for it. Just wanting for you to breathe a little on it.”

There's a pause, just long enough for him to find something else to pick at. “Everything is not alright, Gamzee.” Karkat protests. “It's a fucking mess. I have to make it better.”

“It's alright,” he repeats. He smooths his palm to that cheek again, with a drop more confidence. “Get on that chill a bit.”

When he leans away, Karkat is quiet, and looks at him in a way he'd been hoping for.

“Shhhhhh.” The noise seems unsure out of his rough throat, but he licks his lips once and finds he can do it again, eyes and mind steady while he smooths back Karkat's hair. He never thought he'd get to do this again. Those gray eyes are wide as mealsaucers, now, but they look at him clearly. “Shhh, brother, try to be moving on. Gotta see the thing what's in front of you.”

“I.” He falters, but it doesn't last. “Okay.”

In time, the tension passes; he doesn't dare touch those small horns or their red bases, but he can card claws through the short fluff of Karkat's hair, go from that to rubbing at his shoulders, to drawing thumbs over his cheekbones almost in reverence. Karkat's breathing slows until they match, and there's not any more panic in his eyes. The feeling he gets now is strange, too big for whatever place he's trying to keep it in, and he worries the hammer of his beatpump might be heard.

Karkat seems to blink awake from the pacification, meeting his gaze for that second time. There's only a moment to react before Karkat lifts his palm towards Gamzee's cheek as if to reciprocate.

Just in time he flinches away, turning his head and stopping the offending arm at the wrist. His heart pounds, and his guts tumble.

As he expects, Karkat looks almost betrayed. The plummet in his insides doesn't keep him from forcing a sheepish look as he attempts to play it off. He lets go of that arm and staggers off of his knees, both arms withdrawn. They tuck just under his ribs where the pressure helps with the ache. He tries holding his breath to keep from making a regrettable sound.

He avoids looking directly into the glare of Karkat's disappointment. “Lets be to go upstairs maybe,” he offers. The response is a lot of blustering, but blissfully, Karkat seems willing to ignore what just happened in favor of the distraction.

“No--” Karkat leans to look towards the stove. “It'll burn again.”

Gamzee turns, with a sigh, and plucks the pan from the stovetop. He plainly takes one of the rags out of the drawer handles, lays it over the cutting board, and stacks the skillet over that. The sizzling in it quiets, but not altogether.

“Ain't gonna burn now,” he says, flatly.

After that, he seems beyond arguing. They go upstairs.

\----

Karkat doesn't know what to think. In his mind, he's still going over the way Gamzee had dropped to his knees without pause and raised those bony hands, and the looks that sit in the corner of his eyes. But he's given no time to consider; once they sit down on the bed, Gamzee's thumbs hit his back and start rubbing up the inside edge of each hingeplate. Even through the sweater, it's enough that he stops and tries to mutter out a complaint.

“You don't have to. I'm okay.”

“Shhh.”

He bites his lip, thinking about it. Gamzee's hands are so slow and doing so, so good. The same soft warmth as before creeps into his head. Oh, god. He's suddenly so fucking embarrassed about the potatoes. That he'd needed help over _that_.

“I'm sorry,” he blurts out. “I should be keeping it together. I'm such a fucking idiot. Look at what _you're_ going through.”

“Shhhhhh,” it comes again, and he stops. In time and with enough attention put into his tense shoulders, Karkat peels back the next layer of denial, chewing his lip until the words come. He never used to be able to chew his lips-- too afraid of a scab. But now...

“Kanaya,” He starts. “Well-- I said a lot of things to her. That I shouldn't. About you-- about how I wanted her to... I wanted her to stop me. From doing this.” The admissions come out in bits, but Gamzee doesn't interrupt. He breathes in, out, feeling the circles pressed into his sore back and how much it helps. That tenderness he'd missed so much makes the emotions bubble like a stew, and he's saying things he thought he couldn't. “I was scared. I don't know why-- no. No, I do know why. She was so upset with me. She had the right to be. And then-- Terezi...”

Gamzee's hands stop, for just a moment. There's a chill in Karkat's stomach during that pause, hoping he hadn't set anything off. Both of them are stuck in the past just for long enough before things seem to fade into place again, and Gamzee keeps rubbing into the spot-- the perfect fucking spot, wow-- along his spine, just between his shoulderblades, just above the top of his binder.

He shuts his eyes and lets the feelings even out into blissful, until awareness comes back to him. Vaguely, he remembers how Gamzee flinched. “...You okay?”

“Mhmm.”

“Okay.” Karkat blinks, tries to shake it off. “I was trying to-- I don't know. No. No, okay, I do. I told myself she'd hate me because of you. I thought you'd screw things up.” The confession closes with a bite of his lip, and a pit in his stomach. “The truth is, I never needed any help with that. I shouldn't have blamed you. I make her feel that way all by myself.”

Gamzee stops, his hands coming to a still. Karkat wonders if he's said something wrong, but when he looks back, there's nothing there on Gamzee's expression at all.

He sighs again, looking forward. “I have work soon.”

Gamzee leans towards him until that narrow chest meets his back, and arms loop about his collar. He reaches up to wrap his fingers around one dark forearm, feeling the skin slightly cooler than his own. He'd always expected frigid, from a purpleblood, but that's not what he gets. At this point, he should start expecting surprises.

“I'm your moirail now, okay?” He repeats it to make last night seem more real, and grips Gamzee's arm  like a fragile thing he thinks may disappear or break. “I've got you. It'll be alright.”

Gamzee neither shatters nor vanishes. He stays curled there against his back, rubbing gently at the tension of his shoulders. Nothing more. There's so many things to worry about, but he can't now. Not as long as those claws are working against his muscles, into his hair....

The unfairness of it all overcomes him. He reaches behind and pushes just enough to separate himself from those hands, turns, and guides his moirail to lay with him on the slab. This is better. He can see his face, and watch the look of his eyes. They're full of nervousness, but pity. Pity he'd felt as clear as anything, and that's enough to amaze him.

He scoots close enough to put his cheek on Gamzee's chest and weave his arms around his middle, folding each palm over the curve of ribs. He can feel the little hammer of a racing beatpump in there, and he wonders, and wonders, and wonders.

It's like they're kids again-- exploring something new, yet familiar, something more grown up than them.

“Are you alright?”

Gamzee nods, lips tight.

“You seem tense.”

He shrugs.

Karkat tries not to let his face contort too sternly. “Don't worry about anything else right now but yourself, okay?” He sighs, balling his hand into a worrying fist against Gamzee's side. “Need I remind you that you're brimming with unhatched trollspawn. And-- what did she call it. Exudate? Gross.”

Gamzee folds a palm over the mound of his belly, almost defensively.

“Um. Yeah, that was-- sorry. Look. Let's just say I'm prepared for the others not to like it, if that's what you're scared of.” That maybe betrays his own thoughts too well, but if there's anything he's ever had control over it hasn't been his mouth. “I wouldn't go into this if I wasn't. I know I'm an idiot. But I swear I'm not that stupid-- I mean everything I've said, Gamzee, every last word. I'm doing this because...”

He stops. He'd managed somehow to sound smart, up until this moment. “Well, because if I don't, my big stupid pump biscuit is going to rupture and squish its disgusting aberrant swill all over the block. You'll never get it out of the sheets, okay? I don't care how good the soap is now.”

Gamzee actually cracks a smile, and a snort that comes entirely at his surprise until he catches his own innuendo, blushing.

“Oh my god, shut up.” He would do it again, just to make him laugh. “I'm trying to say-- I pity you. I pity you so much. I'd rather live with whatever fucking consequence this stupid universe can think of with you than a single second more without you.” And his heart jumps at the last words and he has to duck his gaze almost in shyness, because he sees Gamzee's eyes focus.

He makes a sound out of reluctance, still avoiding those eyes. “I really have to go. I don't want to.”

Gamzee hushes, and reaches forward to put his claws on that cheek. “Head off for it, brother. I ain't going to any place.”

“Yeah.” He imagines that would be hard, anyway. “Stay here. Remember what I said, okay?” And a pause, as he lifts from the bed to find his shoes. “Thanks for breakfast.”

He leaves, hurrying down the stairs like he does every time he goes anywhere. Gamzee waits in the bed, listening to the shuffling and commotion of him quickly eating, then dragging his cloak off the hook to go out into the rain. It's not until the door closes that he lets the tension out of his shoulders, rolls to his back, and breathes out a long and trembling sigh.

\----

The next week passes feverishly. The grubs in his belly keep him weighted most days, too heavy and uncomfortable to think of anything else. Karkat is in and out attending to mayoral duties or work, but always blustering and full of guilt and uncertainty and fear, and out it pours every time he comes home. There's lots of times when he says he's sorry. They start to blend together into a constant note.

He still lies awake in the empty house, imagining the tick of a clock to complete the drag of time. Apprehensive, or eager, or something in between before that door opens again and another disaster falls into his waiting palms. There seem to be fewer, over time. All the same, it frightens him. The longer he goes deflecting Karkat's sweetness and dodging palms, the longer it remains this one sided, the more he can feel the growing suspicion. Impatience.

He doesn't know if he's sorry. He pets his claws through Karkat's hair every night until they sleep, but crawls out from under the arms about him to lie alone. He's often fitful, and he doesn't want to wake him. The distance is a kind of safety that can't be afforded at his side.

The dreams are less easily avoided.

He starts awake and sucks in a deep, wavering gasp, clapping a hand over his mouth a moment too late. The noise is high and loud enough to hang in his ears, while he listens to the hammering of his own heart. He counts the seconds in terror; one, two, three.... He gets to twelve before he's satisfied, shakily lowering his fingers into a fist against his throat. Swallowing between each of his breaths keeps them from racing, and though his chest burns for it it keeps him soundless.

He blinks, sighs out one, silent 'oh,' and feels the aches start to settle in. The old wounds hurt, even the ones that aren't real. He covers his eyes, trying to let it pass.

The first time he tries to right himself, his ribs meet something hot and solid and he panics. It takes the sight of his stomach before the memory returns to him, and he rests back into the bed to lay still, holding his claws over his belly like cradling an injury. He breathes shakily, and remembers. That's right.

He makes it the second time, shifting back against the stability of his locked elbows. Curling about himself, he pulls his thighs up to his heavy stomach and grips each wrist in a circle about them. His forehead can barely meet his knees, and the ache is as dulling as the way everything in him presses smaller and smaller. Hot. Heavy. Full. Unbelievably, almost horribly full, like he's always about to be sick. Kanaya tells him there are only a few weeks left.

He's afraid of it. It will probably hurt. But that's what he's good for, anyway. He looks to his side and finds Karkat asleep and undisturbed.

He escapes by inches out of the bed and onto the cool floor, and down the stairs just as slowly. It's another ordeal-- each step leaves a pressure in his belly, and he's struggling to breathe silently by the time he's at the bottom. It's the sigh of the boards under his feet that worry him more, because those sound more like movement. Any troll's ears would be keen to it.

When he gets to the knob, it clicks, and the _shhunk_ of the opening door is just a little too loud. But though he hangs there and waits to be caught by the sound of Karkat waking, it never comes. He takes the moment to slip outside, finally letting the breath out of his lungs.

The grass is wet and soft under his toes, then his legs as he kneels to gasp deeply into the brisk night air. It's wonderfully cold in his chest. It feels like snapping off pieces and swallowing them one by one, and his breath goes out in little puffy shapes when it leaves. Both arms prickle against the chill. Gamzee wanders his fingertips over the gooseflesh almost in admiration of every bump, feeling the tremor of his skin. He's been cold before, but every time... He folds a hand over his smile as it closes, feeling his lips tug in between his teeth, brows furrowing. At least he made it outside.

The night is full of the sounds of crickets, the peeping of frogs in some nearby pond or stream. It's pleasant, but cacophonous, so he cups his hands slowly over his ears and sits in the cold, rocking just a little with the balls of his feet pressing to the wet earth. The ache is so much, and he can feel a crack, and soon out of that it comes spilling.

He folds down against his knees and cries in layered, heavy sobbing. His lungs can't seem to decide between in or out, but either way, they move him hard. He stares down into his belly, curls fists gently into his hair, and waits. It won't last forever. It doesn't.

When he's done, he lowers his hands from his face to grip around each arm. Both rows of claws dig down into that shivering skin, trying to keep it still, the way it used to be.

It would be so much easier if she had just kept her promise. If his body would just lock up like an overdone scuttlebug, start going on its own without a motherfucker. If someone told him he could go back to that, he knows he would. He would beg. He would claw at the opportunity like a starving dog. He's ashamed.

He can't imagine anything else. He hasn't done a good job of anything else; rotting alone someplace cold was all he could amount to with his new privileges. What does Karkat expect? What is he imagining, up there in that room?

That has him make another noise, just as awful. He breathes through it, cupping his bloody claws to cover his eyes, feeling himself shake. The drops of it are warm on his skin, it smears thick and familiar between the pads of his fingers. _Mine_ , he dares to think. There's no immediate punishment. He waits.

“Mine,” he mutters aloud.

Only crickets. Only frogs.

His hands wrap about his mouth, so he won't say it again. _Karkat_...

Those sweet palms had twice said differently. He knows Karkat won't care, and that everything he's tried so hard to keep in his own possession will be gently plucked away by good intentions and greedy fingers. He's so, so afraid. But he loves him. Everything that was empty before is so full now, despite knowing better. Love was tugged out of his resignation like pulling a sick tooth. He tenses, rolls his shoulders, doesn't know what to do. He thought this had been taken from him a long time ago.

“He ain't a bad person,” he tries to remind himself. It sounds so desperate. Who is he trying to convince?

But he doesn't have a choice. Not under the threat of love. Not under the threat of Karkat's love, sweet, stupid, cruel, _awful_ motherfucking Karkat...

There was no way that Karkat was ever, ever going to give up on him; that little red heart was always the most relentless thing in the great big universe, and the thought of it beats in his head. He wishes that were comforting. It only frightens him.

In a minute, he carefully sucks the blood off of each claw and out of each scrape until they stop oozing, and rights himself with another heave. Compensating for the weight in his belly, he shuffles up until his feet meet the earth and he turns to go back. He's pretty sure he's done for now.

Going up is worse than down, and he tries to be as quiet as he left. It doesn't matter; by the time he's at the top of the stairs, Karkat is awake and rubbing sleep from each eye.

“Hey.” He stares through the darkness. “You okay?”

“I'm alright.”

It's such an obvious, awful fib, but Karkat doesn't notice, and only moves to let him crawl back into the bed. He doesn't know what else to do, he's so tired, and his body collapses so readily. Karkat moves up behind him when he lies down, warm and solid, wrapping an arm over his chest. It's as heavy as the entire world.

“I love you,” comes the confession, after a few moments. Gamzee paces his breath.

“I love you too.”

God help him, it's not a lie.


	10. Dragon Games Pt 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There comes a time in any writing project where I accept I have no idea what I'm doing, and absolutely no desire to know.

 

In the glow of morning, Karkat and his moirail wake up tangled together in the bedding, and for a long time they stay that way. He purrs down into the soft flesh of Gamzee's arm, somehow now against his lips, even offering a nuzzle of his cheek along a bony collar. Gamzee rattles back weakly, almost in staccato, stopped each time by hesitation. He has to be encouraged to make even the quietest sound.

“Go ahead,” he insists, the next time Gamzee's chest goes quiet under his ear. “I want to hear you purr.” He stops his syrupy voice, hearing that. “If you want to purr-- I mean, if you want _me_ to hear it. No, that's not what I mean. I mean--”

Gamzee shushes once in a practiced tone, but then rumbles again after a pause. Karkat's relief could be bottled to feed the delicate psyches of millions, he thinks, going to goo between the purr in _his moirail_ 's chest and the gentle scratch of _his moirail's_ claws through his hair. This is bliss, absolutely. Complete, perfect bliss. For the first time in his miserable aberrant wreck of a life, everything is well. He can't believe how nicely it's all going.

Then there's a knock on the door.

His first instinct, which he obeys, is to lift his head and growl. Feelings much, much older than he is are telling him all about how the clown under him is _vulnerable, vulnerable, vulnerable_ and he aught to immediately punish trespassing. But then a palm hits his cheek and his indignation pops like a particularly eldritch spit-bubble, and he has to blink a few times before he can think again.

“I'll tell them to fuck off,” he says with a sigh, throwing back the covers. Gamzee reaches out again and takes a hold on the fabric of his sweater, gentle as anything. Karkat stills, but his beatpump goes aflutter.

“Don't you go all routsome to some unsuspecting motherfucker.” The clown's eyes are big and sweet, and just the tips of his gentle fingers rest there on Karkat's skin. He swallows. What was he saying?

“...Yeah.” He leans in, because he can't not, now, and leaves a touch of his lips on that painted forehead. “You be good.”

He gathers himself, smooths his ruffled hair as he bounces down the stairs, and plucks gently at his sweater before he opens the door. He's expecting Dave, or Kanaya, but Rose waits with a wide basket hung off their arm and onto their hip, and an expression that lifts from its resting coolness into a smile.

“I come bearing gifts,” they offer, hefting the thing just enough to demonstrate. “Is Gamzee there?”

“What?” It's a stupid question, but his mind is still fuzzy and crackling and soft inside. He smooths down his hair again, privately tamping himself back into someone reasonable. “Yeah-- is that for him?”

“Most of it. Can I come in?”

“No, actually, stand outside while I sit here like an asshole.” He moves aside, and Rose smirks as they carry the package in and rest it on the table.

They take the cloth draped over the thing and pluck a few small sacks and jars from the corners. Karkat watches as a line of jams and packages appear on the dining plateau, looking somehow cheery in their little collection. “What's this?”

“The fruits of science. Literally-- we thought it would be best to preserve our results before consumption, once Jane showed us how.”

He walks up to the table and picks one into his hands, turning it under the light. Inside is something thick and amberish and vaguely organic. “Alchemization?”

“Yes.” They seem amused by his correct estimate. “We've made a breakthrough. It doesn't solve problems of quantity, but we've opened up some possibilities. It'll be very useful for small parts and medicine.” With the last of the foodstuffs on the table, they take a small moment to look the room over, eventually craning their gaze up the stairs. “Is he in bed? I can come later.”

“No, he's--” Karkat stops, suppresses the flop in his guts. “He is, but... I guess it's okay. Go on ahead, I'll pack this stuff up.”

Rose gives a subtle nod and trots up the stairs, basket and its remaining treasures in tow.

 

***

 

Gamzee is waiting curled around his knees on the slab. The footsteps, too light to be Karkat's, perk his ears. He raises his eyes from his fidgeting claws and tenses-- eavesdropping had let him know who was there, but he hadn't expected anyone to come to see him. Not alone, anyway.

Once they appear at the top of the stairs, he gives them a transforming look-- surprise, then wary uncertainty. He can feel their eyes watch his row of haggard, yellow claws digging down into the fabric over his legs, and there's a shared, weighty pause in the top story of Karkat's cabin. The walls seem to press in on it.

“Hi.” The greeting is innocuous enough, paired with a strangely knowing smile. That's the way they always look, he remembers-- like there's always a joke, and they're in on it. He decides in a moment that he's unsettled. The way Rose looks at things always seems to go right into them, so he curls defensively as if to deny their penetrating scrutiny.

Ignoring his hesitation, they bring the basket to rest on the nightstand and begin unloading some of the smaller books out into clear view. “I heard you weren't well enough to work. Is that correct?”

Gamzee holds back his reply with a low, indirect stare, chewing at his lip before finally offering a silent nod. The literature tempts his attention as it piles on the dresser, but he looks quickly away. It doesn't seem to matter; they notice his interest.

“I've brought some things for you. One of them you'll have to try on-- if you still need clothes.” They drag a long, broad garment out from the bottom of the basket, holding it up by the waistband. At the height of their shoulders, it almost touches the floor. “Kanaya's idea. Does it get a pass?”

It takes him a while to recognize he looks at a skirt-- long and gray, mostly shapeless. He can feel Rose's gaze on the uncertain twitch of his claws, lingering on how his fingers curl shut. He's almost afraid to reach out, until they give the thing an encouraging little jostle.

He raises from the slab, reaches, and takes it slowly in his hands. Their eyes are still heavy on him as he folds it over his grip like a long roll of parchment, reading down the length of it warily. The cloth is salvage, but the stitches are tight and fine, and at imagining Kanaya's labor his stomach does a roll of fear.

Rose waits, until he finally steps into the thing and brings it up over his clothes, testing the pull of the draw-ties up against his waist. He makes a slow, perfect bow-knot with those gnarled fingers, focused intensely.

“Fit alright?” Rose asks, watching as he sits back down against the bed. There's a pause, a moment where he sits almost perfectly still, sliding his palms over his thighs. Gamzee watches the way the fabric drapes over his lap, his knees, with eyes sharply focused. Rose observes quietly, finding the gesture almost feline.

They don't repeat their question. He looks up all the same, seeming to snap back into the moment. “Yeah.”

“I'll tell her it was a hit.” Rose smiles, and Gamzee only watches with bright indecision. “There's some shirts in here, too. And books, since I heard you would be 'slab-ridden' in the final stretch of your gestation. Don't worry-- I made sure to give the universal sign of bemusement and waggled my eyebrows at least twice.” Their expression falls in recalled disappointment. “Karkat didn't even get it.”

For the first time, he cracks a smile, though even that sends his beatpump tight and rapid in worry. “Dirty, motherfucker.”

“The best things are.” They grin, handing him one of the books with an air of accomplishment. He takes it, carefully and in both hands-- on the cover is a young, human girl with a beast large and white enough to be a lusus. “I had to guess what your tastes might be. It would probably help if I had a few hints.

He looks up, and down, and up again before he seems to put together what's being asked of him. Or that it's being asked of him at all-- he pulls a lip between his teeth and swallows back budding apprehension. “I ain't much on the glyphbricks.” And after a moment of wondering if he'd been understood, further explanation; “Wouldn't know what to be wanting.”

“Well, try those, and let me know if you like any of them. Or not. I'm sure I have at least one book for a clown.”

He nods, too quickly. Rose turns to the basket once more.

“That's not all. I also brought you these.” In their hands now rest two small cups, lids twisted tightly shut. Gamzee perks at the sight of them in thin-pupiled focus, because they look almost like paint. In a moment, he learns they're not. “There's been lavender in some of the meadows lately. It's been a very nice addition to my last batch of salve-- good for healing, you know? Bruises, scars, stretch marks.” They look up, eyes quizzical. “I'm not actually sure if trolls get those... Anyway. The lavender doesn't do anything, besides the scent, but I was in the mood to experiment. I hope you don't mind being a guinea pig.”

He shakes his head dimly, not sure what a guinea pig is, but finding something about the sentiment grimly familiar.

“I'm hardly an expert yet, but the hobby has been improving. It suits me, anyway. I think it helps along the whole town witch aesthetic; all I need now is a cauldron to brew them in.” Rose produces a few more small tins and bottles and describes their contents, all pertaining somehow to hygiene. They talk so easily, without targeting him-- he crumbles a little, unsure of their intentions. In a moment his paranoia flares up into fear and offense. He's sure if it suited them, they could come here and torment him as much as they wanted. Karkat wouldn't notice. A particularly cruel memory suggests; _and if he did, he wouldn't care._

“This one is more like a scrub. Soap, really. And this one foams up in the bath.” They squint down at the bottle, as if scrutinizing it. “Well, I hope it will. Please tell me how they work, if you do use them.”

“Motherfucker--” His voice comes out oddly squeaking, and he stops under their direct attention. “I.”

But it dies in his throat. Instead he pulls up his knees as far as they'll go, wrapping claws about his wounded forearms and squaring his shoulders stiff. The skirt they gave him gathers up into his worrying fists. Maybe they'll leave.

“Are you alright?” They ask. It's a sudden question, and he flicks up his eyes a few times before settling back down into his defensive refusal. If he doesn't talk, he can't answer.

Rose only watches him, as the sounds of Karkat down in the kitchen float up the stairs. He's comforted by them, but also hurt. He isn't sure how much or in which direction, and the effect is a strange, disorienting emotional vibration that scatters every thought and shakes them quickly to nothing.

Finally, Rose speaks; “Maybe I should explain myself, then?”

He finds himself nodding, but he keeps his gaze focused. They lean forward, fold their hands together, and explain.

“On my planet it was customary for friends of the expecting to bring gifts, you know. In demonstration of solidarity to the trying efforts of reproduction, I think. Normally they'd be gifts for babies, but I have no _idea_ what troll babies are like. Not even a little. No one but Karkat has any greater experience, anyway.” They set the last bottle they'd been holding down on the table with the others.

Gamzee doesn't know what to say, and tightens further to increase the distance. The whole idea is too abstract not to bounce off of him like something comically large and filled with helium, floating up and away from him. His response fumbles out; “Could be asking.”

“Maybe,” they answer, looking on after the impressive stash of items now crowding the bedstand. “But that's not the point. You're the one owed the sentiment, earth sentiment as it may be.”

He cools, a little, and asks meekly; “Does it hurt?”

They look up. “What?”

He licks the back of his teeth in search of the words they'd used before. “Efforts that are to be trying a motherfucker.”

Rose blinks. “You would know better than I. Oh...” Their face screws up into a moment of clarity. “Childbirth. That might be uncomfortable. But not dangerous, I think, not with Kanaya. You're only carrying half the load of a human infant, as I understand, and-- it's hard, yes, but humans do alright.” All the same, their face drops into something bewilderingly close to pity, and they quickly-- mercifully-- expedite the topic.

“But this-- it's about society, not suffering. Children represent a very long-term commitment with very great rewards. We raise each other, on earth. Or at least we try.” Rose seems contemplative, shifting in their chair. “I'll admit, I worry Kanaya hasn't imagined it that way. But then I think, it could be my fault interpreting things from a human perspective.”

Maybe he _does_ understand. But maybe that's not it, and it's him that's odd, broken, mushed into shape and stuck partway between being a proper troll, a proper anything. He instead lets his mind catch on something they said. Rewards? Do they mean the things piled up to his left, books and lotions? He looks, thinking that strange, but they shake their head.

“No, not that. Children. A person.” Their tone is convicted and almost wistful. “People are incredible, but somebody has to make them that way. If you'll accept the gratitude, I think you're making a contribution to something valuable. That's why the basket.”

“Oh.” It's all he can say. He sucks the 'thank you' right out of his own tongue, and swallows it down into the cold feeling in his belly, right over that pressure. He still can't find any nobility in it. If anything, he's going to be a stain on their origins.

He looks up at Rose, warily. When are they going to leave?

Not now, apparently. They seem to notice the hang of his feelings, setting that stare upon them again. “Will they know what you did, when they grow up?”

He shakes his head, doubting it severely, fighting off an encroaching melancholy.

“It's soon, right?”

That draws a tense shrug, a nod, and a modest lowering of his arm down about his middle. “Guess so.”

“I hope it's not too tough on you.”

The conversation grates on him, shrill and taught like steel wire on rock. They aught to know better. “Been to have tougher.”

“Like what?”

He prickles, shifting down closer into himself. That's not fair.

A little sour, he straightens his spine just enough to look over his knees. “Like being to get this motherfuckin way'n the first place. You were being to know that.” _Is that what you wanted? See this motherfuckin blood, sister? I'm payin it._

Their expression falls, in sudden realization. “Gamzee. Did you do this to hurt yourself?”

A chill fills his guts. He finds himself coiled tighter than he'd meant to be-- he fights the urge and tries to unwind, but he can't. The question hangs in the air _,_ and he blinks several times, finding wetness in his eyes. _Oh, no._ It lurches up through his thorax unwelcome and unmeant, like vomit or a scream, and he tilts forward, unable to stop the first awful noise out of his throat, or the second.

They stand immediately, though not to approach. “Should I get Karkat?”

He's dizzy, and the sobs interrupt any attempt he makes to speak, and that in itself is another horror-- sputtering against the racking of his chest is so terrible he gives up after the first try, simply nodding behind how he covers his face. When they leave, he lets it go, hands tight in his own hair and eyes down against his knees. In those blissful moments he has alone, he gets the sobs out, violent heaves of breath out of his lungs.

Karkat is on him soon, though he isn't sure when. It's just a sudden warmth of arms around his shoulders and knees, making the wet heat of his tears almost muggy and uncomfortable. Everything about crying is horrible, but he's helpless to stop, or to deny the fraught way Karkat hushes and pets down his hair. Before long, he's shivering under the fingers that stroke down his back, and then a stressed, exhausted rumble works its way out of his throat. His body is lead. He isn't sure what's going to happen to him, he only knows to fear it.

After a while, he's too resigned to make any noise at all, and Karkat gently cups his cheek in a hand. “Are you okay? What _happened_?”

“Nothing,” Gamzee rumbles, trying to hide down against the damp patch of Karkat's sweater. “I ain't--”

He can't find any of the usual justifications, and he knows there's nothing that's going to make him go away. It's too late. He stops trying altogether, enticed terribly by the warm, solid troll that he rests against, settled into quiet and even briefly, calm. The dizzying becomes blackness.  
  
Coming to, he lays on his side against the pillow, with Karkat's hand in his hair. He shudders, gently adjusts it away-- then clings to the fabric of his sleeve. “Karkat--”

“You were only down for a minute. It's fine.” He can see in the yearning of those red eyes that Karkat wants to touch him, to comfort him, and it sends shivers down his back. “Is there-- can I do something? Are you alright?”

“..'m better now.” He says. It's true enough, maybe. He can't do any of the work anymore, the vigilance, the quiet, the secrecy-- if they punish him, then...

Then fine. Let them do it. He won't do it for them anymore.

He waits for a few moments for the retaliation of that thought to sink in, but it doesn't. His body weighs down against the slab in a defeat safe enough to accept, and he sighs, almost in exasperation. But then that's all. He just wants to sleep.

“I think I should-- talk to Rose, probably. Unless you need anything. I'm right here, okay?” There's a tone in Karkat's voice, strangely self-aware, like he feels the distance. He's _not_ right there. They're in totally different worlds, no matter how close they are. But those hands are soft and warm anyway, so-- so what? So who cares?

“I'm okay,” he sighs out. He sounds odd to himself, almost relieved. Maybe he is. But deep down, Rose's words trouble him, like the feeling of swallowing something sharp.

Karkat pets his hair behind an ear a few times and hovers uncertainly before placing a kiss on his cheek, and then gets up in a hurry to descend the stairs in search of answers. Gamzee lets a warm, blissfully blank weariness flood through his limbs, and then the mercy of loneliness.

 

***

 

Rose is waiting for him at the base of the stairs. He comes to a heavy stop there in the middle of the kitchen, exhales pointedly, and cards a hand through his own hair.

“Is he alright?”

“Yes-- _No_. Rose, did he say anything to you?”

They shake their head, lips shut in a way that he almost thinks to ask again, to be sure-- but it doesn't matter. If they don't want him to know, they don't want him to know. In a way, that makes him almost _not_ want to know.

No, that's his moirail up there. He should be curious, right? He should be fighting for answers, fighting for him-- no, maybe not. He thinks, suddenly; _Maybe I'm messing up. Maybe I rushed into this._

“I think-- I should probably talk to you. But.” Rose is watching as he speaks, with an interest and a visible appreciation for his distress, and seems to complete the thought he can't finish out loud. Not with the clown up there sleeping off his breakdown, and his own uncertainty tumbling around in his middle. They make a suggestion.

“You could come check on the town with me. See how our research is developing.” They shrug gently, eyes darting to the stairway. “We'll talk on the way.”

That's right. It's as good a reason as any.

“Okay. Um-- wait here, I'm going to tell him I'll be leaving.”

Rose spends the minutes waiting looking around the room; the grooves on the floor from misplaced chairs, the uncharacteristic mess on the counter. There's a quality to the place there hadn't been when Karkat was alone-- now, it looks almost inhabited.

He reappears, with a shirt devoid of makeup stains and a continued air of unease, and they leave for the village.

 

***

 

They walk together in a stiff silence for almost a quarter of the way, long after Karkat's house has disappeared behind its surrounding foliage. The conversation he wants to have is always on his tongue, but never quite gets out of his mouth, and Rose doesn't push the issue. Every time he glances over, they seem well within their own thoughts. Karkat imagines whatever conversation they'd had upstairs must be replaying in their head, and finally, clumsily, asks his first question.

“How did you get him to do that?”

Rose settles out of their contemplation with a quizzical stare. “Excuse me, get him?”

“I mean-- you made him cry.” He's still fraught with the memory of Gamzee's distress, the wracking of their sobs. “What did you tell him? You didn't hurt him, did you?”

They shake their head, looking appropriately concerned. “He doesn't cry, normally?”

“No.” The confession is dour, a little guilty, a little displeased. “Not in front of me, anyway, if he can help it. Not since that time in the field. The one I told you about at Kanaya's.”

Rose hums softly, but doesn't pry. Karkat trods along in silence until the feelings keep gnawing there in his stomach, and finally crawl out of his mouth in impatience.

“There was one time he came back from outside in the middle of the night. He'd been crying-- he had scratches all up his arms. I think he did them to himself.” His spirit falls, admitting it, watching his feet on the dirt of the road and feeling lower than both.

“He didn't talk about it-- I let him not, because I didn't want to make him feel like-- I don't know. It scared me. I thought, maybe he needs time, he'll tell me himself? But he never did.” He rubs the heels of both palms up into the ridge of his brow, fighting off a headache. “I'm starting to worry. He won't let me pacify him. He sulks, he acts afraid. He stays in bed all day. He barely talks to me.” He lowers his hands from his reddening face, trying to keep his gaze vague.

“Is that terribly bad?”

“It sure as hell makes it hard to do my job.” It comes out sounding almost astringent; he pulls back his tone within his teeth. “There's a way things _go_ , Rose. I know you read my books-- there's a way it's supposed to be.” He'd always thought of moirallegance like a dance, subtly communicated cues and private moments of torrid, revoltingly intimate sympathy. Shame, fear, overcome in a moment of tenderness and mutual yearning too great to ignore. Plenty of dramaticisms. He says as much, and finishes with; “But Gamzee is more... inert. Like a block of wood.”

Rose doesn't smile. “So it's like before.”

“ _Not_ like before,” he insists, perhaps too much. “No, I-- that's the worst part. I don't know. But I feel like he's honestly _trying_ , Rose, I know he is... ” And then, after gently biting his lip; “So it must be me.”

Rose lifts a hand against their chin. “That's possible.”

It's blunt, but not cruel. He balks internally all the same.

"You're asking him to play an Alternian drama. Maybe nobody ever taught him the rules." They shrug, to punctuate. “But to answer your question-- I didn't tell him anything. I asked him how he was doing, and that lead to-- well, he said something that made me curious. So, I asked him why he did it.”

“Did what?”

“Kanaya's plan. I asked him if he did it to hurt himself.”

The possibility chills him almost to the point of stopping on the road, but he carries on, considering it with his eyes locked on his feet. It's troubling, and the longer he thinks about it, the more troubling it is, pooling in the bottom of his stomach like ice water-- he picks up chewing at his lips, again, without reason to care for how red it makes them.

“Do you think...”

“It's possible,” they repeat. “But... I don't know if we should be speculating like this. Behind his back, you know. Really, I shouldn't have asked. I almost didn't want to tell you, but then I thought as his strange alien soul mate maybe you're privy. I'm still navigating the boundaries of this sort of thing, really. It's so foreign to me. Tell me if I've overstepped.”

“Oh.” Another chill settles in his chest, and Karkat swallows back some sort of apprehension. “Um. No, you haven't. Yeah. Thanks.” Rose carries on, and he follows after, sweeping hair from his eyes. He puffs out a breath at the mental exertion of wrestling down his own nerves-- and finds yet another confession there underneath all the inadequacy.

“I don't know why I'm surprised. Of course he doesn't trust me. I used to be such an asshole.”

Rose looks over. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” His hands fall to his sides, swinging. “He was on that stuff, so he didn't care, but-- the things we used to say were just. Fucking abhorrent, really. Even on the meteor, I used to joke about wanting him to suffer.” His mouth twists and his stomach rolls, at the thought. “But now... I'd give anything just to see him as happy as he used to be.”

Rose slows. It takes him a few steps to notice, and he turns to look back. Something about their expression is grave, hollowed. He fills up with dread, not knowing what he did wrong.

“Don't say that to him, Karkat.”

He nods, slowly and completely silent. They walk the rest of the way without speaking.

***

 

When they get to the workshop, it seems as if half the town is there. Equius works quietly in his own corner of the shop, his broad back turned to the others. Jade and Kanaya stand over the sprawling entrails of the town's lone aclehmizer, next to a pile of what Karkat assumes to be experimental results of today's spacetime finagling. Roxy sits perched on a workbench beside the machine, something decidedly technical but otherwise foreign to Karkat resting in her lap. She occasionally pries at its workings with a thin metal rod, but looks up from her work when Rose and Karkat arrive.

“Oooooh, we got company.” She lifts a hand in salute Karkat can only assume is facetious. “What's the occasion, Mr. Mayor?”

“Rose said-- uh.” He looks to them for the complete thought, feeling decidedly unleaderly after this morning. Rose steps up to hoist themselves on the table next to Roxy, peering over her shoulder.

“He came to check out our progress. I went and bragged that we had something exciting, but I see we've gone back to dismantling.”

“Only for a second!” Jade chimes, from inside the contraption's cavernous, cluttered belly. “Give me just a minute here. I was checking out if the power source for that green thingy was really micro-nuclear.”

“I think we shouldn't be poking that,” Kanaya warns.

“Oh phooey, if it was going to blow up it would have already!”

She emerges from the machine with both white ears twitching, and claps dust from the floor off the bottom of her skirt. Piling various strange cords and cables quickly but cleanly back into the casing, she turns to greet them with an almost deranged smile.

“Come on, you're not afraid of a little explosion, are you?”

“She's teasing,” Rose adds, noticing the sudden pallor on Karkat's face. “Mostly.”

“Uh, yeah.” He agrees, mostly in hope of changing the subject. This in itself is a distraction from the other things on his mind, for at least a moment. “You guys wanted to show me something?”

“You saw the peaches? Totally intact! We're hoping for viable pits.”

He shrugs vaguely, while Roxy chuckles to herself at 'viable pits'. “I only saw the jam.”

“Shoot! We'd get you another one, but this dumb thing is out for the day. I can't seem to get the limit any higher, no matter how many times I poke the green thing in there.” She pats the device encouragingly, and it gives an oddly animated _thunk_.

“ _Please_ stop poking the green thing.” Kanaya looks around the room suspiciously. “And we should really set up a contamination barrier.”

That sets off the remaining mayoral alarms in his brain, spurring him to action. “Woah, woah. What's going on?”

“Science, Karkat!” She says, like it were obvious. “You know how we were limited to things we could derive? Like how we spliced a code for a real orange out of that cartoon fruit.”

He remembers, alright, but only for the initial failures. There were still bits of one stuck to the rafters, he's almost entirely sure, with a dry and vaguely orange spot still hanging on. He wasn't sure if it remained out of laziness or tradition, at this point. “And a contamination barrier and explosions why, exactly?”

Kanaya looks a bit sly, in a moment, and with a slow tilt of her head gives Jade an encouraging look. “She'd have to explain how it works.”

Jade's eyes light up, hands clapping together once before her chest, where they stay clasped. Karkat glances between them, and invites further elaboration with a sheepish lift of his shoulders. Visibly giddy, but firmly determined, Jade moves to the nearby workbench and hefts up a small hunk of scrap wood from the table.

“Alright! So, okay, we know that the machine doesn't just conjure things out of mid air, and that it wasn't doing that.”

“Because it's impossible,” he remarks. He remembered that much, and she nods quickly.

“But take-- take this thing here.” Jade holds up the scrap, to demonstrate. “How would you turn this into an apple?”

He stares at it, surprisingly blank even to himself. “Uh.” The answer is something about conversion and organization, he's sure-- he remembers just enough about her initial lectures on gristless transmutation, their saving grace in the untamed wilderness. Most other game constructs had either disappeared or ceased function. “Well-- we have codes for apples.”

“True!” She hands him the block; he takes it, a little warily, into his hands that look oddly blunt next to her long fingers. “But if we didn't, we'd have to make a code. But if we couldn't do that...”

“No apples,” Roxy chimes from the table. Rose supplies a nod. “But then we got to thinking.”

“If you don't need grist, you use matter. If you don't have codes, you have whatever the codes are trying to suggest. Or you try to find what that is. After some time, Kanaya and I developed the theory of them being coordinates.”

“Spacial-Temporal?” he offers, the only technical knowledge he retains from the ectobiology, almost stumbling on the words. Jade grins.

“Ideological,” supplies Rose.

“Both!” Jade answers. Kanaya nods subtly.

“Temporal models of cause-effect are often circular, but that's an oversimplification of a pattern that has more dimensions.” She looks between Karkat's blank expression, and the machine. “Go far enough in any of those dimensions and you will eventually complete a causation loop. That's the rule of paradox space.”

He blinks, trying to let it settle in. “Wait-- it uses paradoxes?”

“Yes! Kind of.” Jade reaches up to scratch behind one fluffy ear. “We always had that idea of an alpha timeline, but that was never my theory. Too myopic. I always thought there were other paths that reached recursive properties, maybe even something you could graph, like a Mandelbrot.”

“I also began to imagine so,” adds Rose. “Possibilities the horrorterrors couldn't see. They only perceive the events that fall to entropy, and there are a great many options just beyond the horizon of reality's curvature.”

He can feel his brain overheating trying to keep up, and suppresses a creeping headache with a palm to the base of his horn. Roxy seems to take pity on him, and with a quick chortle, offers a rescue.

“There there, nubs. What she means is, lots of timelines work. Ours worked, but big squigglies only know what doesn't work.” Roxy puts down both the strange appliance and the weird metal stick. “What Jade wants you to think of is like, turnin a timeline inside out like a sock.”

“Basically.” Jade comes up, takes the block again. “An apple is a relatively unique phenomenon in spacetime, unlike something more general-- like iron, that's why we have trouble. Apples are a complex pattern of materials, you know?” She sets it down on the alchemizer, where it would go before transmutation. “You can't just yank information up out of the universe. So we don't do that-- we find the apple in the block's causation loop, and we take that information-- we juxtapose it in spacetime.”

“That's why a barrier,” Kanaya explains. “You might accidentally snag a deadly microbe or two from the object's environment. It's a risk of this kind of duplication.”

Jade nods. “The block still becomes the apple, becomes the block, becomes the apple. The pattern isn't changed, and no paradox is created. We just moved everything in the apple's reality up a step, like a rotary dial. Well, more like swapping some of the numbers.” She grins. “Which would be breaking the rules, if you only had a circle. But we're inverting something more like an infinite, recursive _sphere_ of self-similar spacetime.”

He thinks he's starting to catch up, barely. He darts a look over Jade's shoulder to Kanaya, who merely shrugs, as if helpless to elaborate on anything more than biological threat. “Isn't that-- hard to do?”

“Oh, it's relative! Like how stepping forward puts the whole universe behind you.” Jade tosses the block up once and catches it again in her broad palm. “But yeah, the math in there must be pretty incredible to image all of these things. I'd love to crack some more stuff open...”

Kanaya coughs pointedly.

“...but with how much we depend on this thing, it's probably a bad idea.” Her disappointment seems so honest, Karkat can't help feeling a little bad for her. Or maybe that's the last remnants of his stupid, incorrigible crush. He hopes not, but swallows nerves and averts his stare all the same.

“Someday, Harley, I'm sure. Thanks. Don't let me keep you guys from working.”

The girls dismiss him with a nod, and with a puff of breath he steps away, towards the doors to cool down the exertion of his mind. It always takes everything he has to keep up with them, when they're all in a room together. He always knew they were brilliant, but in concentrated effect it's almost scary.

Just as his contemplations return to the clown in his bedroom, a presence floats up behind him, completely soundless. He looks over his shoulder at Kanaya's towering height, and straightens himself as if entirely unflustered.  
  
“Oh, hi-- uh.”

“Terezi is in the library.”

He blinks, barely restraining a cower. “Oh, yeah. Well-- I kind of need to get home to--”

The look she gives, along with its absolute silence, is enough to terrify. She must not know what she looks like, now, with those slitted pupils, but then he imagines she might know exactly. Either away, the effect has him quickly going from terror bordering paralysis to a derning acceptance.

“Okay,” he sighs.

That seems to be all, and she leaves, but not without a nod of agreement. When she's gone, he steps outside and looks down the building with all the confidence he can summon, but the effect is still meek. Right. He's been putting this off.

The doors are heavy, and give a solid creak under his palm as he pushes them apart. The library, the most advanced architectural endeavor of the town, has two walls both lined with windows facing the north and south. Light pools in among the shelves of the books Rose had rescued from the various reaches of the incinisphere, and from the skylights above the banisters of the second story.

It was an example of what the trolls and humans could do, in cooperation. Trolls had an instinct for architecture, capable of erecting structures in weeks with the psiionics of the warmer castes. But humans had an eye for function and aesthetic that couldn't be rivaled. Not wanting to admit it, he found himself occasionally humbled.

In the canyon between books, tables are arranged in a pattern-- Terezi sits on one of them, a single tome opened in front of her. He coughs. She doesn't look up.

“Um-- Hi. Are you reading something?”

“Researching.” She adjusts her bright red glasses, catching a flare of the noon sun. “What do you want?”

“Well.” He flounders, sees how unimpressed she looks, and sighs, trying to summon the best parts of himself. The way Gamzee had looked at him that morning comes immediately to mind. “-- Look, I have to tell you something important. About the clown. And me.”

She shuts the book over a colorful strip of paper that leaves her place, looking up at him seriously.

“We're--” He takes a deep breath, exhales it, and braces for the squirm in his stomach. “We're moirails again. I should have just told you that's what I wanted, instead of hiding it. I shouldn't have been sneaky. I shouldn't have let you find out like that in front of everyone, and-- I shouldn't have lied to try and placate you. In front of everyone.“ He stops, only for a pause. “I was afraid of hurting you. No-- ugh, that makes me sound. Altruistic. That's not it. I was just afraid of-- losing you. I acted like a moron, and a creep, and I'm sorry.”

She keeps her head tilted to listen, straight and focused. But she doesn't give a response more than one, knowing nod, strangely cool and collected. Justifications are already in his head, but he doesn't think they're appropriate. That doesn't stop him, in the end.

“...He needs me, Terezi.”

That turns her cool gaze into a scowl. “Be honest, Karkat.”

He blinks, until it dawns on him, with a new wave of shame. “...I need him. I _want_ him.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, strangely peaceful, voice quiet. He isn't sure what he's looking for, but it's not that vague, impenetrable look on her face-- it's impossible to tell where her judgment falls, and she probably wants it that way.

He eventually comes to another admission. “I understand if you don't... if you think less of me.” He adjusts his hair, sighing. “If you want me to stop, you can ask that. I owe you that much.”

She pulls up a corner of her mouth, making a face like she tastes something bad. “It's not like that, Karkat. Really. It's complicated. Just give me some time, on this. I need to figure some things out. No one's giving me any room to just... figure things out.”

  
“Okay. Yeah.” He resists launching into a million other tangents-- Another _I'm sorry_ , or _What do you really think?_ or least advisedly, _I love you_. “Let me know if there's anything I can do.”

As he turns to leave, he hears her adjust in her seat. “Karkat, hold up.”

His beatpump hammers once he turns back around, as loud in his chest as it is in his ears. He can't imagine what it is she wants. She holds out a hand. “Do you still have Aranea's necklace?”

He blinks for while, but nods, fishing it out of his pocket to go hand to her. It sparkles down into a little glittering pool there in her gray palm. “Yeah, here. Um. Should I ask?”

“No,” she finishes for him, closing her fingers around the tiny bundle of silver. “I'm going to borrow it for a while, if that's okay. It could help.”

“Keep it as long as you want,” he assures, with a raised hand. She nods, and then dismisses him with nothing more than the way she re-opens her book, tracing her finger slowly over the raised ink.

Karkat lets himself out in a hurry, taking a deep breath of the spring air. It's pleasant, refreshing and clean, nothing like in any season on Alternia, or anywhere else he can remember before here. Clouds threaten to roll in from the mountains; he thinks even from where he stands, he can feel their moisture in the air.

When he looks down, he sees Rose standing on the edge of the storage barn, apparently waiting for him. He comes out and down the steps with a sigh, fitting both hands down into his pocket.

“Well, that settles it. I'm really his moirail, no matter what.”

Rose nods in sympathy. “Kanaya told me what you were doing. Was it bad?”

“No... yes.” He tugs both palms from his pockets to cover his eyes, tilting back his head. “God, Rose. Am I doing the right thing?”

“You're taking a risk. But it comes from a good place, I think.” Spoken like a true neutral party, Rose carries their usual air of having withheld information, or speculation, or both. “Just listen to that good place.”

 _Gamzee is my good place_ , he thinks, remembering again to those sweet eyes. “Alright.” And then, in a moment. “Hey-- I have to ask something.”

Rose waits expectantly. “Well?”

He has to summon the words, and hell, why not?-- swallow the last of his remaining pride, as withered as it is after the last few weeks. “It's just-- you humans are better at this sort of thing. You just are. You're more perceptive, you're nicer, you just-- you care.” He eventually drags himself to the point, like dragging his ego over a valley of sharp rocks. “How do I take care of Gamzee?”

Rose smiles, but it fades. “I don't know. If we were on earth, I'd say therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.” They pause, their lips twisting in thought. “That's not meant to be derisive. I had a therapist, through most of my childhood.”

“Oh. I didn't know.”

“Nobody does. I haven't told anyone.” There's thoughts and memories there that he doesn't disturb, even though he can see them playing back in Rose's mind. “But we're not on earth.”

“No.” A small, traitorous part of him begins to wish that they were. He keeps that private, kicking it down into the base of his feelings with a hundred other, less appropriate things. He'd felt a lot of ways towards humans-- nearly every way imaginable, he thinks, each stranger than the last-- but envy is new.

He sighs, dropping his hands. “It's up to me, I know. But thanks for bringing him things. It's good to know someone else cares.”

Rose nods. “You're welcome.”

They part ways, and Karkat sets himself off down the dirt road back home, tender thoughts and the smell of lavender thick in his head. He'll figure out some way-- even if it takes the rest of his short life. If humans can do it, how hard can it be?

 

***

 

When Terezi finishes reviewing the passage, she closes the book, returns it to its place, and leaves for the back room of the library with the necklace firm in her grip.

In the rear, there's a closed space working as an office for settlement records, planet biology, and cartography. On the rare days Vriska actually keeps to schedule, she can be found there, adding her findings to the whole.

Miracle of miracles, she's actually present, with her feet kicked up on the table and her chair leaned back precariously-- Terezi can hear it creaking as clearly as she can smell the bright red of Vriska's shoes on the caramel-brown wood, orange with sunlight. At her entrance, the chair thumps back onto all four legs and the boots slide back under the table.

She can almost smell Vriska's frown. “ _What,_ ” comes the inquiry, purposefully sharp. So her ego is still bruised from the river, then. Besides that, neither of them bother letting on how much the last week hangs on them. Letting on was never their way.

“I'm here to ask you about a necklace.”

Vriska slides her elbows onto the table, squaring her shoulders. “Okay, let's see it.”

Terezi fishes the cool thing from her pocket, holding it so tightly that Vriska might not recognize it until after she places it on the table and lifts her hand away. Vriska darts her gaze down after it, stern and souring.

“Pff. That's Aranea's, alright.” She leans back, as if distancing herself symbolically, and snarls a lip in disapproval. “Why are you hanging on to that nasty thing? Where did you even get it?”

“Not important,” She answers, flatly enough to deny any further questioning. Karkat would be too juicy a topic for her, Terezi knows, after the spectacle of last week. She hopes that doesn't make it obvious. “Someone had to have brought it through, you know.”

Vriska scoffs, lightly, and gives the thing a repulsed shove across the table. “Wasn't me.”

“Didn't say it was.” Terezi collects the thing back up, stuffs it down into a pocket, and chews over her next question. Vriska waits in growing discomfort.

“Did she ever mention Gamzee?”

“No.”

“Did she ever mention _me_.”

Vriska folds her arms, hands balling into fists beside each elbow. “... _No_.”

“Hmm.” She taps a row of fingers down along the head of her cane, seeing herself from outside herself; a cool-gazed legislascerator with an eyeline-height advantage, for as long as Vriska remains sitting. Might as well use it while she can. There's an almost disembodied factor to her next question; “How would you say she was acting? Normal? Distracted?”

“Why are you playing games again, huh?” Vriska sits forward, moving out of the defensive. Both palms flatten to the table to support her lean, ready to go into a stand. “I thought you put that sleuthy business behind you or something.”

“Well, now I've put putting it behind me behind me.” She picks up her cane, gripping along the pole with both hands, trying not to let her knuckles go white around it. “Are you going to answer me?”

Vriska pauses. “I don't know. She didn't tell me anything. Nobody had _any_ idea what she'd been doing to you, if _that's_ what you're trying to ask. I don't know _what_ she was thinking.” It seems honest enough, from the way she seems vaguely burned-- Terezi can imagine but not quite make out the specific qualities of her twisting grimace. “One second she was there, and we were in on it together. And the next, she goes right over our heads and makes a huge mess of everything! And then I'm all by myself high and dry, because _she_ wanted to go roleplay.”

Terezi's scowl interrupts her businesslike facade, and try as she might she can't resist a jab at the lack of self-insight. “I can't imagine.”

It connects. She can almost feel the drop in Vriska's stomach in her own, and decides that's long enough to have pushed the subject.

“That's all I wanted to know. Bye.”

She gets almost to the door before the creak and scrape of the moving chair sounds up behind her, and the clatter of Vriska getting to her feet.

“Look, I'm SORRY about the river, okay!” It's loud, unavoidable; it's a demand, and it stops her with her hand on the knob. “How am I supposed to know _that_ would set you off? Didn't you try _yourself_?”

Her skin crawls in sudden revulsion. She points the sheathed cane; there's more than enough distance, but Vriska recoils anyway, perhaps from the memory. “You don't talk about that. You leave it alone.”

“Why _**not**_ talk about it! It's obviously bothering you. You're driving me crazy!” In a horrible moment she thinks Vriska might cross the table and remove it as a barrier, but the distance remains. She lowers the cane, considering flight. Vriska sees it, considers it an opening, and lunges into a new avenue.

“Don't think I don't know you're talking to them about me! I do! And I'll save you the time; I know what they're going to tell you!” She straightens her spine as if to better imitate Kanaya's voice. “Poor innocent Terezi, had to kill her best friend! Because she was too crazy! And now that I'm back, you can just pretend like I was the bad guy, and we were nothing! Is that how they're going to spin it to you? Are you really going to listen to that garbage!?”

“I don't think what I listen to is any of your damn business.” _Not anymore._

Vriska groans, just a few decibels below a scream. “UUUUGGGH! What are you so afraid of!? Being like _me_?” The way she lifts her hands up to her horns in gesticulation is unfortunately similar to a pose of focused psychics, and Terezi's empty eyes glare forward. “You liked it when I was on YOUR side. But as soon as you had to face the facts, suddenly I wasn't good enough! And that's when you wanted to shut me out. Once it was easy.”  
  
_It was never easy_ , she wants to say, but Vriska's illogicisms stop her. She can taste them as clearly as she can imagine them, as blueberry lines of text, mythologized in a journal. _Write this in your damn diary;_ “We were _hurting_ people.”

“Oh boo-fucking hoo! People get hurt all the time. And they _deserve_ it!” A pound of her fist punctuates the statement; Terezi barely contains a jump. “I bet you just sit around crying about it, feeling soooooooo sorry for yourself! You used to be so much better than this. You used to have guts.”

“I used to let you get away with it.” _I used to let myself get away with it._ Her own voice sounds oddly cool to her. Her fists don't shake, but they flex into the cane, and inside her stomach does flips.

Vriska pauses to swallow and think, then makes her accusation. “Conditional enabler.”

 _Oh, it's on. I've been waiting for this._ “Liar.” _You haven't_ , says another voice, but she shoves it back down to wait patiently with the snakes in her belly, twisting wildly in excitement. _All of you are going to have to hold on._

“Self-hating whiner,” Vriska leers. _There's nothing more dangerous to an ego than a mirror..._

 _Think of Aradia, Think of Tavros._ “Rapist.”

Vriska's eyes widen. _That's right, I read your damn book, cover to cover. I had time. Three years of it._

The recovery is quick, and to the point-- her senses are so sharpened in this moment she can feel the flick of Vriska's eyes down to her cane. “Backstabber”

“Back- _turner_.” _Hook, Line, Sinker._ It doesn't feel that exactly planned, with how her breaths pick up, half at alarm and half to clarify the image. “I gave you a choice. You never did that for me. You always tried to reduce my options-- you're trying _right now--_ ”  
  
“ _Bullshit!_ ” There's a thunk, somewhere, a result from a movement too fast for her to catch on her nose, but the vibrations come up through the floor and rock up into her rib cage. Vriska is a livid, slate blur in the sunny room until the scent of her settles back into clarity. She emerges from the fog like a ghost summoned by indignation. “You _always_ knew what I had to do, and you knew what I was _like!_ You never _had_ to be my friend!”

“I _wanted_ to!”

That leaves her stunned, bewildered. “ _Why_ , if I'm so terrible!!”

“You're _not_!” She exclaims, inexplicably. “That's why _I hate this so much_!”

 _That_ brings it all to a halt, so much she thinks she can hear it creak and whine. She takes the opportunity, and in a moment of brilliant strategy, bolts out the door and runs. She's out the hall and around two buildings and still going before she realizes how far and how fast-- and even then, she decides she won't stop. There's just grass and air out here, and the reach of the sky above her, and the cold wet smell of an incoming storm.

Vriska hadn't followed. She eventually tires herself to the point of gasping in breath by the ferns of the outskirt woods, leaning on a tree. _Out of shape_ , is her first clear thought. The rest are an unbearable torrent of self-analysis that eventually come to the conclusion; _you ran away from your problems. Literally._

It's almost beyond upsetting. Almost. Without a single drop of pride left in her she stands up, dusts herself off, and sighs, tightening both hands into fists in her own hair. She waits for the crushing shame, or the embarrassing tears, anything. That doesn't happen. Just a vague, meager dread, and a sudden desire to check her pocket.

She fishes out the necklace-- good, still there. Didn't leave it, won't have to go back. All the same, she makes plans to return it quickly. The damn thing is probably cursed by now, by all evidence. With the chain still looped around her fingers, she takes off her glasses, cups her hands over her eyes, and groans.

 _Good job, Pyrope. Reeeeaaaal good,_ her thoughts moan sarcastically.

High above her, the sky is a peppery gray on her tongue, and she sighs at the goosebumps raising on her skin. “Better get home,” she mutters to no one, pocketing the trinket. “Looks like a storm.”

 

***

 

When Karkat gets home, he has a plan, and it starts by quietly padding up the stairs to check if his moirail is still asleep.

He finds Gamzee bundled under the bedding, curled perfectly still even as Karkat sits there beside him on the mattress. He only adjusts the blankets, quietly, and gently takes the book they'd been reading from under their clawed hand. Keeping it as apart as it had been face-down on the sheets, he saves their spot with one of the basket's lavender sprigs, and rests it on the counter.

Gamzee sleeps heavy and long, now that his body tires so quickly. For a few minutes, Karkat sits watch, but after that he stands from the bed and puts his ideas into motion. He's only ashamed it took him a week to think of something so fundamental.

He starts with heating water in the largest pots available, broad and sturdy. The basin normally reserved for washing clothes is tricky to get through the door, but it fits, and its waterproof holdings will have to do. It's not the smooth, comfortable curve of a real ablution trap, but with a towel it might be safe enough for that dark, wonderful skin. He thinks of all the scratches and bruises he's seen on it already; he couldn't bear another.

He brings and empties the heated pots into the bath, then fills them again to return them to the stove. It takes time; hours. Karkat skips lunch, Gamzee sleeps through it. There's enough clattering and noise to worry Karkat about disturbing their sleep, so as the second batch heats, he plods back up the stairs trying to be silent. When he reaches the top, Gamzee already lies on their back, uncurled and watching the stairs wearily.

“Sorry,” he says, softly. “Did I wake you up?”

Gamzee's response is a meek, “'s alright.” They keep still, save for the rise of their breathing. “...What are you to be doin down there, brother?”

Karkat smiles. “Something for you. Do you want to see?”

Gamzee blinks, then nods, and sits up just enough that the weight of his belly slows him. Karkat comes up to help, but there's no need. Not until he's sitting there upright, looking winded and unsure. “Can you walk alright?”

He nods, and slouches over his middle, holding in his words. A few escape, regardless. “...Sore, a little.”

“Here-- hold on to me, we've got this.”

The two of them make it down the stairs one step at a time, with Gamzee's thin arm over Karkat's wide shoulders, and an elbow bent about his ribs for support. When they reach the bottom, the pots on the stove are boiling again-- so Karkat leaves him by the support of a wall to heft one up by the handles, pouring it in to join the rest of the bath. Testing the temperature, it feels okay; a warmth comparable to the clown's flesh, hopefully comfortable.

“What is this havin itself to be?”

“Rose gave you bath stuff, right?” He looks up from his work. “They wanted you to try it out. Let's do that.” He pauses, realizing the tone in his own voice, a little too eager. Almost desperate. Is this too fast? Too _much_? It's more than they ever did, and it might be wrong to try and take up exactly where they left off. “If you want to. You don't have to-- you can just go back to sleep, I'll make dinner--”

But Gamzee is already walking up and testing their fingers into the water, gathering it up into a fist, smoothing the warmth into his palm. His eyes close, and he sighs, something coiling there in his spine while he thinks. Karkat watches, apprehensive, and pale. Doubtlessly pale.

“We can be doing this,” he says, quiet. Karkat feels his shoulders fall in relief, and regrets it will be so obvious. He goes briefly to get the things from the bedstand, while Gamzee slowly, almost fearfully, pulls their shirt up off of their shoulders, and undoes the tie of the skirt about their waist. Karkat notes the wariness, compares it to those first few days-- wonders-- but respects it. There will be time, but some things have to be done in order. His heart is racing too fast to focus on anything but what's in front of him.

When he comes back, Gamzee is easing a leg over the rim of the basin. It looks a little precarious, the way their full stomach rests atop thin limbs, the way those arms and legs seem fragile, withered-- but Karkat suppresses an urge to come and assist him just for long enough that he settles himself down into the water all his own. It comes up to his chest, but too clear to hide anything, so he stays curled with arms loosely about his knees, gaze lowered towards the bath.

 _It'll be okay_ , He wants to say. But he doesn't know that yet. He'll try making it okay, first.

He comes up to the basin, resting the several concoctions beside them on the table, pulling up a chair to sit himself within arms reach of Gamzee's horns, and hair, and shoulders. “Is the temperature okay?”

Gamzee responds with gruff, wordless purr. It's an answer enough to send bliss through his pale little heart, and he suppresses the urge to lean in and kiss him right away. _Easy, now._ Instead, he reaches for one of the taller bottles, squinting to decipher the sharp, long figures of Rose's handwriting.

“Goes in the water,” the clown mumbles after a time. He looks up, nods, and screws off the cap, tilting it out and stirring it with his fingers.

Gamzee's head still hangs, eyes lidded and body slumped, though with comfort or exhaustion he can't tell. Maybe it's not either, but both; he tries to read every sign so he can begin to learn them, and Gamzee doesn't seem to mind being observed. At the very least, he permits it. Karkat bites his lip, tries to still any overly conciliatory urge in his hands and keeps them tight into fists when that inevitably fails.

The bath never quite foams, but the scent is pleasant and relaxing, almost enough to calm his inner dialogue. It's quiet and warm in the house, with clouds that rolled in during the afternoon threatening now to rain. Watching those bony shoulders shift up and down with Gamzee's sighs, he eventually can't help himself from asking. “Can I wash your hair?”

There's a look, but then a nod, so he moves behind them nervous but eager. _I'm not going to mess this up. It's going to be fine._

He lifts each sleeve to the elbow and gathers the right substance into his hands. Gamzee has to point out the bottle, silently and with a lethargic gesture. He uses a sparing amount to account for the texture of Gamzee's hair, and hesitates only for a moment before sinking his hands carefully down into that softness. It's heavenly. Gamzee's purr peaks briefly into a growl, but only for a note before settling back into a stressed, quiet rumble. He cowers somewhat, after having made the noise.

“It's okay,” Karkat reassures, pausing his hands. “It's okay, It's okay...” and then, he dares even further. “Shhhh...”

Gamzee's eyes close, then, and he relaxes under the touch. Trying desperately to make his breath of relief silent, Karkat's fingers work down into the curls, gently against his scalp and the tender base of his horns, massaging light circles across his temples. He's really doing it. He's taking care of him. He can't help his heart from blooming with pride. “Is that good?”

Gamzee nods. They seem unable or unwilling to speak, holding their lip in their teeth, eyes looking almost ready to cry. Karkat slows, but doesn't stop, trying to be careful. He treats him delicately, nerves prickling at the tension. There's a lot unsaid, and even more unknown. But things have to start somewhere, and if he can start it this way, with calm and comfort, he's absolutely going to try.

“Shhh, just like that,” he mutters, once the clown under his hands seems to unwind. He lifts water into a palm, cupping it up beside the now-soaped hair; the other comes to shield his moirail's eyes. “Careful,” he warns, letting it wash through the curls until they feel clean and clear, gently rubbing them between his thumb and palm.

There's a mutter, finally, from under that dark hair. “Paint aughtta come off.”

It takes him a moment to understand. “Oh. Um-- do you want me to?”

Gamzee shakes his head, sleepily. “Nah. Hand a motherfucker that rag, is all.”

He does, and tries not to watch too intently as Gamzee wets the cloth and wipes the paint from their face, baring new swaths of dark skin under the bright makeup. He isn't sure about the formalities, but it must be significant. Eventually, it's all gone, leaving only their long, hollowed features, and the three faded scars. He doesn't mean to stare. He just does, because those purple eyes seem darker now, deeper, and less concealed.

His purr fades from pained rumbling to something more earnest, smoothing down into a calm that entices Karkat to lower his hands down to those narrow shoulders, rubbing very gently. Gamzee doesn't even flinch. He seems half-asleep curled against his own knees, so Karkat takes the liberty as carefully as he can, circling thumbs against all the places that seem sore. Then, in the cool light from the window, he sees the silvery pattern of scars.

Many are lines, long, curved and thin. Among those are blunt, spidery impacts that raise in little peaks, reaching as long as Karkat's palm in their furthest branches. He can't imagine what they're from; the large, flat end of something blunt, maybe. And all along those, little cratered pockmarks, sometimes aligning with the other scars like orbital patterns on a starmap. He finds himself tracing them, slowly, a sudden coldness in his heart.

Gamzee squirms gently, as he touches them. “Don't look at them, brother.”

“Sorry,” he says, right away. He brings both hands back up into the safety of those mostly clear shoulders-- the scratches and bruises from the caverns are all gone, now. “It's okay now. It's all okay now.”

He chances a kiss down into that wet hair, slow and reverent. Gamzee's purr bubbles briefly, then thrums deeper, and Karkat thinks he might faint. _No, keep it together. He needs you right now._

He eventually gets off the chair to slump down against the side of the bath, relaxing comfortably while he smooths water and soap down along Gamzee's arms, stopping before the fresh scratches past his elbow. He'll treat them in time, but now he knows there's bigger wounds, obvious in the way Gamzee hides his face, tries to hide his own comfort like it's a secret.

 _This is how it should have been_ , he thinks. Why couldn't it have come sooner?

Eventually, a voice lifts from the crumpled frame he puts affection to, weak and slowed by sleepiness, and quiet beyond a whisper; “Gettin cold.”

“Yeah,” he breathes out. “Alright. Time to get you out.”

He adjusts his rolled sleeves and reaches in, carefully, to lift him by the ribs. The two of them manage a standing, but even then the clown is limp and relaxed and sways with closed eyes. Absolutely stupefied, Karkat asks a question while he wraps him in one of the clean towels. “Do you want me to.. help you upstairs?”

Gamzee takes a moment to understand, and he sees just a flare of refusal. It fades, fizzling back into weariness, perhaps an exhaustion too great to refuse. He worries; he waits for a clear answer. He can't trespass again.

But in time, something in that expression turns almost bittersweet and he nods, twice, in the smallest way. Karkat moves in, wraps his arms slowly about Gamzee's back, finishes drying him-- and then carefully tilts him in towards his grip, moving an arm under his thighs to pick him up.

It's only a little awkward; his limbs are long, and his body is heavy with its custodial burden, but Karkat proves strong enough. That alone inspires a feeling of sudden pride, primitive urges in the exertion of his muscles. Damn straight, he's going to carry his moirail. The feeling is almost heroic.

The stairs are doable. He takes them on like a soldier would, walking them up sideways to care for the hang of Gamzee's ankles and the reach of his horns. In his arms, the clown drapes weakly, seeming close to sleep.

He rests him in the bed as carefully as something glass or porcelain, pulling away the sheets, fluffing the pillows. His bravado shrinks into worry in another second, then back to something assured, then back to something entirely unassured. But for the moment, everything is right. “Feeling good?”

The wordless purr that comes out of him is devoid of pain or hesitation, for what feels like the very first time. Karkat contains his enthusiasm, adjusts the blankets once more, and settles in to rest at his side.

Once he's dry, they cooperate to get him dressed, then Karkat leaves to prepare dinner. It's worth it to watch him eat, without nervousness or fear, as if for only a moment the hard edges of things were smoothed away. And then, after that, they find themselves together on the bed, arms loosely linked about shoulders and ears perked to the sound of rain and thunder.

He can't seem to bring himself to look directly at that near-sleeping face for too long, cleaned of makeup and blood and anything else, but neither can he keep his eyes away. He wants to hold on to every moment like this, as hard as he can, for as long as he can.

He thinks now to the book he'd placed on the dresser. He takes it up gently in one warm hand and brings it to rest on his lap, turning it to scrutinize the back cover. Rose had alchemized a translation in legible Alternian, it seems. “Were you reading this?”

Gamzee nods softly into where he lays on Karkat's chest, still half-awake. “Yeah.”

“What's it about?”

Gamzee shrugs, at first. But then, they lift a claw up out of a curled fist to pry the book apart, which Karkat holds open as those dark eyes trace the page. Eventually they point to a sentence, the last they've read, and their long claws pluck the stem of lavender out of the book and up into their grip, to hold in a gentle fist against Karkat's sternum.

He starts, keeping his voice gentle, softening it as he reads until the troll on his chest is sound asleep.


	11. No Tigers Pt 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was really hoping 'No Tigers' would be a chapter where things come together brilliantly into a natural series of events that hit all the story beats I needed, concise and to the point, moving the plot along smoothly to its destination. Well, I'm just not that good, or I haven't gotten enough novel-length projects into their awkward middle age and then past that point to know what to do when the whole thing goes inert and I'm neck-deep in trees with no forest in sight. Instead, I had to accept fanfic is fanfic and I could either publish what I had or spend another six months agonizing over what's ultimately a weird fic about weird eggs.
> 
> Part one posts today, part two tomorrow, an intermission on Friday, and the grand finale (of this chapter) on Saturday. That's the plan, anyway. If you want to make like netflix and binge read a bunch of eggsad, that's when to crack open your laptop. If you have a desktop tower or a mobile device, please do not crack that open. The chapter will not be inside it.
> 
> But beyond that, I'll let the next twenty god damn thousand words (how do I let this happen) speak for themselves. A few warnings; some mild alcohol use here and in the intermission, and some very non-graphic xenobiological unpleasantness in part three involving the MacGuffin. Also, Vriska.
> 
> A few technical notes; I'm finally replacing double-hyphens with dashes, and will likely go back and make massive, cohesive edits to the fic going forward to eventually make things a little more consistent. Notice the words 'will likely' and 'eventually.'
> 
> Last but not least, thanks for reading, and for returning after the break, if you have! It's been enough just to have a few people along to enjoy something that was really meant to be self-indulgent, and soon I'll be done. I'm hoping to beat Actual Homestuck to an ending, but we'll see. Enjoy!

She isn't sure how this is going to go.

Rose's invitation had hung in her mind for about a week, and by then she was sure she'd have come up with some sort of reason to flake. Kanaya was one thing, and Rose another– but both of them at once had her hesitant for reasons she found hard to describe, even to herself. All the same, somehow Terezi had found herself here on Rose's porch for the second time, on a day where the sun beats brightly through the trees and makes everything taste like spots.

She's working up the stomach to knock, and in time enough Rose beats her to it. The door opens, and a small black shape slinks from the crack to pool quietly at her feet. Terezi looks down and breathes in the image of three, green eyes, and sighs at the resounding _meow_.

“Hey, mutie.”

There's a dim yet peircing sapience in the way he turns his head, and as ridiculous as it is she finds herself feeling scrutinized. _Hey, Don't look at me like that. I showed up._ Above him, Rose leans through the open door.

“Could you get him? He likes to run off when the birds are out.”

Obediently, she kneels down to scoop up the warm blob of fur and bones. _There's no way human earth cats are real_ , she decides, feeling the mass of the thing pool over her bicep. _They're fake, and Rose invented every last one of them in her basement._ Quite suddenly, she has the mental image of Lalonde diabolically considering a fur coat and a slinky. It seems plausible.

Once she's upright, Rose moves in for a hug and connects it successfully with an arm about Terezi's shoulders, minding the furry lump between their bodies. “Come on in, and bring my cat with you, if you please.”

No backing out now. With Mutie in tow, she steps over the boundary into Rose's home.

The atmosphere is decidedly sunny; the clearing around Rose's home allows the sun to pour in through every window and skylight, and the effect is a soft, honey glow as yellow bounces in from the pale wood of the floor and furniture. There in the middle of the living room is the main event in question; Rose's few upholstered furnishings apart from the bed, arranged about their coffee table and charged laptop. Kanaya's iconic figure leans along one of the couches, enjoying something out of a ceramic mug.

“Hey,” she offers. The cat adjusts in her grip; she lets it escape and plop to the floor, no worse for wear. _Coat slinky_ is the inevitable thought.

“Hey,” Kanaya answers. And blissfully enough, that's all she does.

“You two get comfortable,” Rose insists from the foyer. “I have something to put on the stove. Terezi, you can go ahead and look through the movies if you'd like. We already cast our votes, so you'll be the tie breaker.”

“Alright,” she replies, sealing her fate. With no where else to go, she sits herself in the middle of the second couch a few feet from where Kanaya lounges idly. It's unusual to see her lounge, is the first thought, the second thought being the sudden and unavoidable scent of blood. “Is that–”

“Yep. Among other things,” Kanaya answers, tilting the mug slightly in her hand. There's a strange cant to her voice. “Rose had it ready for me when I showed up– an entire bottle. I tried to ask her how she got it, but she just gave me that look like it amused her more to keep it a secret. So, I stopped asking and started drinking.” And from the sound of it, had made some progress. “It's good.”

Just as she says so, the cat reappears as a dim smudge at her side, somehow extending its form up until its nose touches the glass. She can't resist a grin. “Mutie seems to think so.”

Kanaya moves the mug away to her other side, her motions uncharacteristically swaying. “No, that's not for you. Here.” She offers the cup out to Terezi; it takes some time to understand what Kanaya intends until she gets the idea, dipping a single nail just to touch into the red liquid. When she withdraws and holds her hand out in the lump's direction, it delicately struts its way cross the tangent arms of the couch, and comes up as if to lick her claw, which she denies. _Vampire coat slinky._

Just as she's turning to run her thumb over the raised labels of the DVD cases, Rose returns, and hands her a glass of something cool and brightly colored. She wonders how the ice was managed, but decides she's just as likely to befall to Rose's sense of prestige if she inquires. The day and the walk were both hot enough to make her thirsty, anyway, but before having a taste but she considers Kanaya's demeanor. “Is this..?”

“Alcohol optional. See how it tastes first, I made a guess at what you would like.”

She does. It's cold and tart, tasting lightly of mint, and makes her vision fizz in an entirely different way than from being too sweet. The effect is cool and blank and refreshing, and as she lets the world come back in out of that light teal fog, she thinks, Why not?

“Sure, let's give it a try.” She hands the glass back into Rose's hand. “Are you going to...”

“No. Probably better that way.” Rose winks in a way she thinks is incredibly bold, in the face of the topic, and retreats again to the kitchen. “Did you pick a movie?” Their voice calls back.

“Um–” Ignoring the cat nuzzling up into her bloody hand, she sets down her drink and palms again at the cases, sniffing a few times to get an idea. The covers seem to suggest Wizards and Vampires, respectively. She could have guessed. “What's this one,” she offers, lifting a case up to Kanaya's discretion. Kanaya leans in, squints, then falls back against the couch with a groan. “Not good?”

“Bella loves him _so much_ ,” Kanaya laments softly. Terezi considers the case in her hand. Well, she's heard worse reviews. The box gives an audible crack when it opens, and feeling along the laptop's side she's able to open the disk tray and lay the shiny thing down, popping it into the machine with a satisfying click.

That's when Rose returns, two bright glasses in her hand. Terezi takes hers gratefully, and gives a careful sip while her host settles by the far end of the couch. The initial taste is alarming, a mix of sweet and something so unusual her mouth struggles to find the appropriate color, settling on a metal gray to match its odd medical sting. But doable. She even manages to keep her face still.

“Do we have a winner?”

“This one,” Terezi says, holding up the empty case. Feeling a little conscious about licking the thing, the title is still imperceptible. “Kanaya said it was good.”

There's a small white flash of Rose's teeth. “Nice. Let's get started.”

The movie passes in blobs of color, occasionally sharpening as figures hold still and occasionally vanishing as she drinks from her glass. Kanaya seems rapt even despite her continuously degrading posture, leaning in to view the screen from her perpendicular vantage. By her lap, mutie settles into a strange furry twist, and at her left, Rose sinks comfortably into the couch, nursing her non-alcoholic beverage. The mood is set. Despite herself, Terezi starts to relax.

She finds herself more engrossed in the drama of Bella Swan than she means to be. Kanaya points out the occasional vampiric inaccuracy or coos at a tender moment in an uncharacteristic bubble, at which Rose jests her politely. Once, she flickers her glow as an appropriately timed joke. But Kanaya's interest seems genuine, and Terezi develops a fascination of her own. Sometimes a character will do or say something so bizarre she has to lean in and take a good sniff to see if she's missing some sort of visual cue. Nothing that she can tell.

Rose notices. “So, what do you think?”

She blinks, wondering where to begin. “What are the algorithms here? They seem odd.”

Kanaya waves a hand during a swig from her mug, and then drops it to reveal a wide grin. “Oh, Rose, Tell her. She'll never believe it.”

Well, _this_ she has to hear. She turns as Rose elaborates, with a strangely satisfied smile; “All of our movies are written by human writers. Kanaya tells me that's an archaic sort of thing, on your planet?”

 _On_ my _planet,_ Terezi notes. _I really am hanging out with aliens._

Still, the idea is novel, and she baffles about it, reaching for another swig of the mysterious minty juice. She decides the taste has grown on her. “I mean, haven't you run out of ideas? That's why we started having the computers do it. And eventually they got really, really good at it.”

Kanaya nods from the couch, a lag and heaviness to her motions. “They had to serve the empire's values, of course...” Mutie is begging her for more of her beverage, but this time, Kanaya keeps it to herself. “Which was efficiency above all else.”

Rose sits rapt as Terezi continues to explain, having to be unusually careful about her speech as her beverage takes effect. “Eventually the old films were dubbed obsolete and backwards. They were all purged from history, and screenwriting is a cullable offense.”

“Ah, I see.” Rose smiles like it's funny. Terezi guesses it is, just a little, even if she can't guess the specific nature of Rose's amusement. “Well, not on Earth. This movie was made from a book.”

“They're writing _books_ now,” She says to Kanaya, who shakes her head in sympathy. _Humans_. “Did humans write the books you gave _me_?”

They nod. “Humans make mistakes or create moments of confusion, or vagueness. Or even frustration. But those moments can often provide the most unique elements of an experience.” Rose grins, boldly. “What we have is something special to our humanity. We have _bad_ films.”

Terezi blinks at the obvious answer, and slowly matches Rose's smile. “Well, I like them.”

An egg timer rings from the kitchen, and Rose sits up to go tend to it. “That's dinner.”

“Want us to pause it?”

“No, I've seen this one before.” They wave her back down with a hand, and Mutie lifts onto his four paws and follows them on their way to the kitchen. They pass Kanaya as they go. “Need a refill?”

“Yes, Please.”

Just into the third act, Rose presents dinner, long tubes of processed grain (a recent outcome of alchemization) on a red, meaty sauce, full of the earthy tastes of things from the woods. Terezi eats it over fascination with the unique machinations of human plot and a resolve to finish her drink. She's still far closer to Rose's sober than Kanaya's inebriate delirium, but decidedly on her way. Rose gets her another mixed to a lesser consistency, and returns with small plates each laden with thick, chocolate-brown squares. It's a uniquely human confectionery, she learns. Even Kanaya has some, unusual in regards to her normal distaste for solid food.

“Oh my god,” Terezi mutters. The drone of the movie goes unforgotten in the background, but decidedly harder to pay attention to with good food and a head gently buzzing. “What did you call these?”

“Brownies.”

“Fuck,” she replies, through a mouthful of the chocolate. “Your planet was the best. I'm so sorry the game blew it up.”

“Well, we kept the best parts.”

The movie finishes, and the laptop runs out of battery. Still the night goes on, without her being too sure what she was nervous about. Kanaya not even possessing the immediate faculties to be judgmental and Rose being by all means the perfect host, she even starts to relax.

At one point, Rose leaves and returns with a small bottle of black nail polish, likely held in reserve long after the reckoning and isolation on the meteor for some special occasion. _Oh, Jeez._  
  
But after only some reluctance, there she is, propped against Rose with Kanaya's surprisingly dexterous claws painting her toes, and a black, purring lump on her stomach. They gossip over her idly, to which she occasionally contributes, especially when Kanaya has verbal difficulty. _This is nice_ , she realizes. Her head rests just so on Rose's soft chest, but they don't seem to mind. She feels that if she stands, she might be dizzy. _This is really nice_.

_So why don't I feel good?_

Eventually, an answer works out of her mouth. “Vriska and I fought again.”

Kanaya stops painting to make an _ech_ , looking up from her work. “ _No_.”

“Yes,” Terezi insists. “We did.”

Rose reaches around her to pet at Mutie's ears, and Terezi gets the idea, doing so herself. They're strangely rigid for as soft as they appear, like fuzzy leaves in her hand. “What did she say?”

She swallows the lump in her throat, sighs heartily, and lays back further onto Rose's torso. “She called me a gutless, self-hating whiner. And an enabler. And a hypocrite.”

“Noooo,” Kanaya groans, short of further articulation. Rose even gives a noise, and reaches up to card away a lock of Terezi's hair in sympathy. She suppresses a pale little shiver, but accepts the comfort.  
  
“That sounds like projecting.”

“That sounds like bullshit.” Kanaya sways on the last syllable, lifting the small brush of the polish to gesture. “You know what... you know what I think? I think _fuck_ Vriska.”

“Fuck Vriska,” Terezi agrees, in a moment of unbridled anguish. The cat meows, and she rubs its cheek carefully with the pad of her thumb. “Why does she _do_ that?”

Rose shrugs, and she can feel the gesture lift against her back, and the little puff of breath that goes down over her horns. “It's easier to reflect on others than take responsibility for our own feelings.” Rose's hands start playing with her hair, idly braiding parts of the back– in her inebriation, Terezi tries to resist a purr that would result from the pale tingling in her scalp.

She bites her lip instead. “I'm so... fucked up inside. And she knows it.”

“What– Terezi, no.” The _z_ holds for just a moment too long in Kanaya's mouth, who looks up once more from her work. She's almost got all ten claws done. “You are... so beautiful. And smart. And everyone loves you. You are just so great.” After the last syllable, she sways noticeably, catching herself on the chair of the couch. She pauses, eyes narrowing in scrutiny on some distant point. “Hmm.”

“Alright there?” Rose asks. Kanaya nods, then puzzles further.

“Oh. Rose, I think I'm drunk.”

“Lay down, it's ok.”

Kanaya makes an A-ok gesture with one hand, sets the brush of the nail polish back in the cup with only minor difficulty, and lays herself down on the couch perpendicular to their own. Terezi looks down at the eight black claws and gives them a wiggle, managing a small grin. With Kanaya dozing, it leaves just the two of them. “I didn't know she would have that much. Here,” Rose says, shifting to reach for the polish. “I can finish up.”

“No, I kind of like it,” Terezi interrupts. Really, she just likes the way she can lay back on Rose's torso. “Hey, let me do your hands.”

By now, the warm tastes of sunset have all but faded into night, and the candles are the only glow that guides her nose as she carefully applies the black polish over each clear, human nail. It's tricky, and she makes a proper mess of it, especially from the angle. But Rose is eternally patient.

It's dark, and quiet, and exactly the sort of mood for what Rose says next. “I hated my mom, once. Really, honestly hated her.”

She knows Rose will be able to feel how her shoulders tense, and hopes they'll know it's in sympathy. Their tone is soft, almost sad. She can understand that.

“Why did you stop?”

There's a heavy, gentle sigh, and Terezi doesn't need to breathe in to know the expression on their face is mournful, in the exact definition. She decides she shouldn't have pried, and goes back to painting those last few nails, giving extra attention to the last strokes necessary. On her lap, the cat is still purring, the blurry shine in its fur flickering just as the candlelight does, quick sensations of sharp orange over the lingering taste of dessert.

“You know when we first met?” She offers, trying to reciprocate. The drink makes her noticeably more candid, anyway. “It was on a game forum for wigglers. I got in this huge fight on one of the threads, I don't remember what it was about. She started talking to me, just because I'd made everybody else mad, and she liked that.” She almost smiles, but doesn't. “And you know what I did?”

“What?”

“I answered as a dragon. Refused to break character.” She remembers the way Vriska had met the eccentricity with her usual bravado, albeit with all the amplifications of childhood. Hadn't they gotten into a big fight over her godmodding? Something like that– but all the same... “She thought it was funny. I thought she was cool. We started talking every day.”

Rose withdraws their hands as the last nails are done. “How old were you?”

“Four.” She can't even taste those memories– before her new eyes, before flarping, before anything. That was a different person, someone who lived in treetops and played with toys all those sweeps ago and never hurt anyone. Or got hurt. “I was this half-feral weirdo. And nobody else seemed to like her, but I did. Then I met Tavros, Aradia– everyone. Because of her.” The room is so dark and quiet except for her voice, and the cat, and Rose's breaths and heartbeat. She stops tasting the air, letting it all fade into black.

“She was my friend.” And that was her world. Her little world with chalk and games and death, too much death, too young. How could she have ever thought she could know who should live and who should die? At six? At _four_? Of course she would make a mistake – of course she would –

Her eyes mist briefly, and to her relief, that's all. “I missed her so much.” And after a pause, something more honest. “I miss her now.”

Rose doesn't talk, at first. There's a long moment both spent running their own algorithms, piecing together their own stories forwards and backwards privately in the dark. Everyone has to figure themselves out, in the end. That much she knows, without having to imagine what Rose is thinking.

She's lost in her own thoughts when that soft voice comes out again. “It's easier to forgive people when they're dead. They can't hurt us anymore.” She closes her eyes, puffs out a breath, and rests completely on those words. “But that's the reality of life. The reality of her. Both good and bad.”

She doesn't have anything to add but her own cooling acceptance, nodding gently in a way Rose will feel against their shoulder. The burden lifts slightly; at least someone knows what she's talking about. At least she doesn't have to feel crazy, on top of it all.

“She might come around someday,” Rose offers.

“We all might,” She mutters back optimistically, feeling the cat rumble under her palm.

On the far couch, Kanaya gives a faint groan, lifting herself up from the reclining slab. Rose perks slightly and Terezi sits up to allow them escape, so that they can go check on their wilting matesprit.

“Kanaya, do you need me to take you to the bed– Oh.”

Before their sentence finishes, Kanaya is upright with an arm snuck around Rose's middle, lips down against their collar. Rose flushes instantly, but grins, permitting themselves to be tugged down on the couch.

Terezi finds herself smiling, too, adjusting to the point where the cat escapes from her lap. “I think that's my cue to leave.”

“No, no! You can stay if you want– _Kanaya_.” The two of them are already gently tangled despite Rose's assurance, and suddenly the room has that unquestionably gushy atmosphere. She can't exactly make out their dreamy gazes, but she imagines them anyway with a smirk.

“No, it's fine. It's getting late, anyway.”

“Alright. Do you want to take some brownies home?”

Her grin widens to show all of her sharp teeth, her head buzzing agreeably. “Yes please.”

Rose and Kanaya both tell her goodbye, with a few more blurry complements and a square of brownies wrapped in thin cloth. She accepts both with earnest thanks, standing outside of Rose's door amid the sound of crickets and night birds. When Kanaya sways her way off into the house, Rose stays, giving her a final send off.

The world is still a little fuzzy in the corners, but in the moment, nothing is clearer than Rose's silhouette in the doorway. “Thanks for having me. I mean it. I had a great time.”

Rose smiles. There's a hug, which she leans into, savoring the last moments of warmth up against their soft human torso, and a promise that she can come over anytime. In her moment of inebriation, it seems like a miraculous truth.

The walk home is refreshing and brilliant, with the treetops overhead opening up into a carpet of glittering stars. She can taste them even from down here, all those points of light a sweet, sparkling dust on her tongue. And past that, the deep blue night, going on forever and ever.

She raises one triumphant fist to it, for no reason at all, whooping internally. And lets it fall back to her side as if she'd grabbed one of those glittering lights on the way down.

\---

 

It's the soft beeping of his crab watch that wakes him, long before the sun rises to hit his upstairs window. He blinks awake, paws at it with a sigh until the noise stops, and lays there heavy and tired on the recuperation slab for as long as he thinks he can afford to.

Behind him, Gamzee moves slightly closer, and he feels the slab creak as they put a careful nuzzle down on his shoulder. He groans, faintly, trying to solicit more of that attention. He doesn't want to get up. More than _anything_ , he doesn't want to get up.

With Gamzee unable to work, it left the fields understaffed. He'd done what he could, moving things around, bringing people in for whatever shifts they could donate from their spare hours, but in the end it hadn't been enough to keep him from working through noons to deal with his anxieties of deficit. This was too important– everything was too important. It was bad enough they hardly knew what they were doing out there. If he could just sleep...

Gamzee hushes. Their affection is still timid, but it's constant, always there for the days he comes back tired and strained. Right now, knuckles brush down his back hesitantly, almost too gentle to be felt.

“Tired,” he complains. He'd always been a bit lazy, as a kid. Meticulous, once he was awake, but the getting there... faintly, he can remember the shrill complaints of his lusus and the gentle tug of their claws all those sweeps ago. And now, three sweeps later and with a world to run, and he's still lazy? He can't believe it.

If this were the fleet, (if he could ever have gotten into the fleet,) an imperial sargent would be dragging him out of his bunk and into training. This out of shape, he'd never make it. The training colleges would eat him alive and spit him out like technicolor grubpaste. He blinks out into the darkness of the room in early morning, thinking about it. He can almost feel that alternate self, out there somewhere, stressed out of their mind and carrying a bright red secret– his stomach drops, inexplicably.

Gamzee is quiet, gently rubbing knuckles into the middle of his back. “Take another hour, brother.”

“Can't,” he groans. But more than anything, he wants to.

He does end up staying there for a few more minutes, until the threat of sleep becomes all too real. It's then that he sighs, tosses away the covers and stands up onto the cold wood floor; not quite the deck of a space ship, but as close as he's getting in this lifetime. A stretch or two is all he needs to steel his mind against the appeal of crawling back into bed with his warm, gentle moirail. When he looks back, they're eying him piteously, with a look that makes his chest tighten.

“What?” he asks, pulling on his shoes. “I can't stay. You know that.” He breaks eye contact to make sure the laces are tight, but when he looks again they're still staring on in that odd way; he swallows back a sudden bashfullness, feeling heat come to his face. “Come on, Gamzee...”

“Sorry,” they mutter, quietly. But that looks stays the same, and he can't for the life of him decide what it means.

In the end, it pulls too hard on his heartstrings, and he leans in to put a baffled kiss on their unpainted forehead. They'd stopped wearing it, in the nights, ever since he'd given them that bath. It's nice to be able to nuzzle and touch their face without dry, powdery smears, and the clean pillow cases are an added plus. But nicest of all is the little feelings of pale pride in his heart, every time he can kiss their bare skin.

“Sorry,” he echoes. His heart hammers, this close to them. “I'll be back tonight, okay? Rest.” But he stops for two more kisses, then a third once he's finished pulling on his sweater. Gamzee's encouraging purr makes his pulse give a final flutter, and by the time he's out the door his irritability and exhaustion are equally matched by a giddy feeling in his beatpump.

It's that deep blue of pre-dawn where things are hard to make out at a distance, while he's on the road. So he doesn't quite know it's Kanaya coming up from town until he can spy the shape of her tall horns, a dull gray in the cobalt light. He stops, once they get close enough to speak.

“Morning,” he mutters, his voice low with fatigue. Her face screws up in a way that he worries, momentarily, is disgust or derision. It's the first time he'd run into her since she'd encouraged his apology to Terezi, and he thinks back to Gamzee's gentleness with strange feelings of guilt. It takes him a while longer to tell that her eyes are narrowed in discomfort, not scrutiny. “Uh, are you okay?”

“Headache,” she grumbles.

He twists a corner of his mouth, familiar enough with the effects of human soporific. Does he pry? Is there even a fucking reason to pry? Hell, it's not like it's his business. They're all adults, technically and his pale fumblings with her are unfortunately fresh in his memory. No, he decides, he'll let it go.

He doesn't have to do anything, after all, because she notices him floundering. “It's fine. Me and Rose had Terezi over.”

 _Oh._ More guilt, sudden and heavy in his gutsack. “And there were drinks?”

“And there were drinks,” she repeats. He can almost hear the discomfort in the hush of her voice.

“I just–” he huffs up, not knowing why. _Don't you dare, Vantas_. “Well, fine. You guys must know what you're doing.”

She smiles as if amused rather than approving, and he folds his arms in sudden horror with himself. What is _he_ doing? He really needs to find an excuse to leave. Before he does something else stupid, like asking...

“Did Terezi, um–” _No, no, no, you stupid fucker_. “How's she doing? Okay? She didn't, uh–” _For the love of god, stop._ “Mention...”

Kanaya seems unmoved, even as he grinds his own conversation to a screeching halt before that last damning syllable can get past his lips. It's anything from a nice save, but it's the best he can do, and the fact she stands there slowly computing through her pan-ache only gives him time to dwell on his idiocy. He must be the most pathetic, putrid excuse for a hive-maggot on their frigid joke of a planet. He thinks he can feel sweat gathering on his brow despite the cold– _fucking hell, what is wrong with you?_

“I was a little out of it,” she admits, her eyes focused onto some point in the distance as if trying to recall. “She had a good time, I think. We watched movies.”

“Oh,” he says– she could have said anything and he might have said _'Oh.'_ “That's good.”

Finally her grin is a little more benevolent, and he lets some of the tension out of his shoulders. It's a wasted effort; at her next question, it all comes right back. “How's Gamzee?”

He doesn't mean to visibly bristle. “He's fine, okay? Still full of eggs, like usual.” He scuffs a toe on the ground, re-folds his arms. “How much longer did you say it was going to be?”

She shrugs. “It could be any day now. If it goes on much longer, we may have to start to worry.” There's that same strange, thoughtful squint to her gaze. “I think I can remove them manually. But it's not a theory I'd like to test.”

It's official, he thinks; this has to be the most uncomfortable conversation he's ever had.

“Alright,” he says, extracting himself best he can by moving to the left and giving her ample room to pass. “I'll make sure to let you know if anything happens.”

He doesn't get very far, not even a step, before she speaks up. “Wait.”

He waits. After a rub of her palm to her temple, she seems to collect herself, and steadies with a sigh. “I have something for you.”

“Oh?”

“Not here,” she clarifies. “I'll have it dropped off at your hive, later today.” And then, as if she can tell from the look on his face that's perfectly unclear, she explains. “It's that furniture you wanted– the recuperation bench. Sorry it took us this long.”

“Oh,” he answers, working himself into a calm. He'd forgotten about that, and pulls up a corner of his mouth into his teeth. “It's fine. I mean, it's not like I had the company, anyway.”

“You might, with the eggs coming.”

That's true enough. He isn't sure why it makes him feel even more exhausted.

In the first few months of setting up hives and figuring out living spaces, there'd been plenty of resources scavenged from the humans' dwellings, or the meteor, for furnishings. But there was only so much to go around. Back when things were just starting out, or before they'd gone through the door, he had some idea in his head they would all be more social. He'd wanted a couch with the thought that John or Jade might come over, or Terezi– anyone, really.

He hadn't imagined how busy it was going to be, or how preoccupied everyone would become. Or what his world would be like; strangely quiet, strangely green and vast and indifferent. In retrospect, it seems silly. Of course a new universe was work...

And now, with Gamzee there, that made the prospect of visitors even more complicated. He sighs, transparently, and Kanaya raises a benevolent eyebrow.

“It's fine,” he explains, lying. “I'm just... tired. Dead fucking tired, Kanaya.”

“You have been working a lot,” she notes, sympathetic despite her own ailments. He gives a defeated nod, ruffling his unwashed hair. Tonight, when he gets back, he should take care of that– and weed the garden– and do some laundry...

“I could always turn you, if you'd like.” she says, her delivery entirely deadpan. He has just enough time to look up at her before she answers his wary stare. “That's a joke, obviously. It's not that I wouldn't care for company in my affliction, but I think I prefer you alive.”

“Yeah, me too.” He smiles; if she's cracking jokes with him, she can't be too mad. Maybe she heard what he'd said, or how it had gone?

If she had, she doesn't mention it. She simply nods, and pats him on the shoulder as she passes; he reciprocates with a brief, soft clap of his hand on her steely bicep, and they keep on walking in their own directions in the dark blue morning. The air is getting warm enough that his breath doesn't mist, but cold enough he still buries his hands in his pockets, soaking in the absolute stillness of the world.

It occurs to him, if he went in any direction, he could just keep going and wouldn't find anyone else. No strangers, violent or benevolent. No imperial sargents, for sure. Nothing. Just blue and blue, and blue, just like this, for miles.

Shrugging the chill out of his shoulders, he carries on into it towards the fields. It's going to be a long day.


	12. No Tigers Pt 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Make sure you didn't miss part 1!
> 
> Special thanks to Doro for proofreading and providing excellent revisions, helping me in my darkest hour. If this chapter is any good, it's thanks to them.

**Part 2**

 

_It had been like falling into water and fizzing up into nothing. A great, sudden expansion, like becoming a cloud. He'd filled himself up, feeling vaporous in all of the new space, clinging to the inside of his shell of a mind like dew. It wasn't until he could pool back together that he knew something had changed._

_The ragged pains in his body were suddenly his own, the cold on his skin felt all by himself. And the immediacy of his own lips and his own thoughts, moving like syrup. Moving too slow. To slow to deter that first strike into his jaw, to send him sprawling down on the cold earth._

“ _And you better fucking stay there!” That voice rings in his ears, just like the impact. “If you even... I fucking swear...”_

_Oh, oh. There's a strange rightness, a familiar weight, a compactness. This, he knows to do– and it's too easy to curl his fingers into the dirt and go still. He can blink, he can shiver. Overwhelmed, it's impossible to hear what Karkat is saying, though he begs his ears to listen._

“ _You know what? I'm not dealing with your shit right now.” Karkat rocks back onto his heels as if done, but then forward again, like waves on a beach. “Or ever the fuck again. If you don't stay right there and keep your damn mouth shut, I swear I'll let Kanaya dice you into pieces.”_

 _He watches. Lurching, on the inside. Thoughts bubble up outrageously in their new capacity–_ Yes, yes! _Death was an option now, wasn't it? He manages not to beg for it, only through a din of conflicting pleas and negotiations that confuses him into silence, or inaudible babbling. Tangling together into something so exhausting as to be the same as thinking nothing at all. There's too much space in his head; it's excruciating._

“ _Do you fucking understand?”_

_He nods._

“ _Good.” Karkat turns away. “Somebody tie him up.”_

No, no, no, _he thinks, not now, not after he'd just gotten it back– but what can he do? He hopes in holding his limbs tightly together they may overlook him, but of course it doesn't work. They bind him up, leashed by his wrists to one of the trees. He doesn't test the ropes. If he does, it will only get worse._

_He stays there, cold, while the others meet their new surroundings. He never looks up from his feet. He shivers, and takes a private, bittersweet joy in the shivering, laying his own head to his knees, feeling his breaths come at will. But what good is it?_

_Bodies hurt. It's all they do. Why should he want one?_

\---

Gamzee wakes from the dream, and lingers in the bed alone.

Eventually he would have to get up. But the moment feels eternal, and the gravity between him and the slab insurmountable. The bed is cold, when it's empty. He can never quite get warm enough under the blankets alone, and Karkat had left hours ago.

It's little more than habit that finally gets him up, hobbling down the stairs, and putting together something like a meal. The flour from Rose's alchemy still sits there in the cupboard by the sink– he spends as long as he can stand staring at it, trying to make sense of his options, before his hunger and weakness drive him to something easier.

The kitchen is a mess of potato peelings and vegetable scraps, when he's done. He stares at that, too, and at his food, until it's cold. And he waits, unmoving at the breakfast table, until the drone of pain in his hips goes on long enough to steal back his focus.

Every time he imagines some grip on himself, on going on living, it seems to tatter apart. It doesn't seem real, or even appropriate.

Why _had_ he done this? Had Rose been right? Everyone wanted to know, but it wasn't like he understood. Before, he'd been alone, and still and stagnant and nothing had happened inside of him even on the nights he'd spent lying in the cold; it all just went through, and he kept going. Then the eggs, and Karkat, and now, he'd wake up some days like the world was all around and everything was close enough to touch.

Something itched in the core of him, something growing, and running quickly out of room. Something he'd never had a chance to be, and even now, something that hung in a delicate balance. That was the horrible truth; no matter how much he threw away, there would always be something left to lose. It would grow _back_.  At least, for as long as he was alive.

Life was still taking whatever was given to him, over and over. There was really only one thing that had changed going through the door; living, at last, was optional.

He puts a palm down against his full, aching middle. Not quite, really. Wherever he went, these motherfuckers would go with him. Wouldn't that be the punchline to a long, evil joke? Filicide, in his last moments. What a load of awful shit. He rubs the wetness from his eyes, and can't even make himself feel angry.

_Just a while more, motherfucker. You can do that, you been through worse. Think on it then._

It's as good a thought as he can wrest out of his head, he admits with a sigh, and pulls himself slowly up from the chair, back up the stairs, to the slab where he lays back down as if resigned. There's too much gravity pulling on his body, too much pulling on him in too many directions, even now.

\---

 

It's late in the afternoon, bordering on evening when Karkat finally leaves the fields. He'd stayed as late as he could, but his resolve hadn't lasted once the others had left. Out there under the reddening sky, it was just as unnervingly empty as the blue morning, and the complaints in his limbs discouraged him. Eventually, he called it quits, even with the the constant alarm bells in his head that they weren't working hard enough, weren't getting far enough.

When he arrives home, the door is ajar– it's not until he stands in the doorway to see Equius adjusting the couch in front of the hearth that he goes a little cold. _Oh, right._

He's nearly forgotten. Even if he'd remembered, he wouldn't have thought _Equius_. Immediately something grim settles in his imagination, and there's a lurch in his gut; what if something happened? That much goes unreflected in the clean, goreless surfaces of his hive. _He's just here for the recuperation bench, dummy_. But of _course_ it had to be him. Had Kanaya sent him on purpose? He thinks not, it's so unlike her.

Still, he'd rather shovel out his own guts than sit here in this room for a moment longer, so he steps forward to fill the distance between his guest and the stairs, and prattles over the creaking of Equius repositioning the furniture. Gamzee is nowhere to be seen, probably for the best. The sooner he can get this over with, the better.

“Hi, uh– is that the one? Wow, that'll be great. Thanks. Hey, is it getting late?”

A stony look cuts off his yammering. His first instinct is to find some way to turn into slime and collapse to the floor, but his body seems determined to stay solid. Equius stands from his work, cleaning the palms of his gloves against one another and gathering his things. _Good, he's on his way out._

Equius makes it all the way to the door, even stepping through the damn thing, before turning around. “May I say something?”

 _Damn._ “Yeah. Is there a problem?” _Besides the obvious one._

Maybe that's not what this is about. Equius looks stern, but hardly vengeful. He seems to notice Karkat's squirming, anyway. “That's what I wonder.”

“What? No. Everything's fine. Why wouldn't everything be fine? Everything is obviously, totally fine. You dropped off a couch, and now you're done, and you can go home. It's fine, clearly.”

Those outrageous arms fold over each other, glistening as always. The way the biceps pool against how each hand rests on them is sort of distracting, but he guesses the red creeping into his irises might make Equius feel the same way.

“Your simpering is more disappointing than the substance of your quadrants.”

 _News travels that fast, huh?_ He lowers his eyebrows. Of course it does, what else is there to talk about? Cabbage? His expectations for the conversation hadn't exactly been sky high, but he still finds himself disappointed. “Yeah, I get that a lot... is this what we're doing, the Karkat disapproval hour? Can we fucking reschedule? I've had a long day.” A long _couple_ of days.

“I'm not aiming to sway your decision.” Equius adjusts his pack of things on his thick shoulder, as if ready to leave, but continues uninterrupted. “Though it confounds me, absolutely, whatever it is you gain from that... creature, I can't deny your actions have a certain...” He holds the word in his mouth, for a moment, as if deciding whether to part with it. “ _Nobility_.”

It still comes out slightly acidic, to Karkat's ears. Would 'mutant' be said in the same tone, he wonders?

“Coming from you, that's a _real_ compliment.” He doesn't mean to sound snide, he swears not, but it worms out anyway. He's never complained about blue bloods out loud before, not like Sollux might– but he's starting to understand the appeal. “And he's not a creature. He's my moirail.”

That's the first time Equius looks anything but stiffly critical, but it passes. They stare each other down. Karkat worries about the troll upstairs, and what they might be able to hear. Underneath him, his tired legs complain. All he wants is the comfort of his own empty hive, and his bed, and a purring moirail...

He decides to hurry this along. “So? What's so noble about it? As long as we're totally wasting time, and all.”

“That you would take responsibility. I was wondering how long you would go leaving the problem to fester.” Through his glasses, his gaze seems to darken. “Though, your gutless display at the barn threatens my confidence. I would not take moirallegiance as lightly as you appear to.”

“Well, I don't.” he reassures. “I've got him under control, and it's fine, and you don't have to worry.”

 _Control?_ That was a joke. Control was the last of the issues in his quadrant– Gamzee was placid as anything, practically inactive. It was almost the opposite problem. He worries it must be obvious on his face; the way Equius looks at him seems to say so.

“I have nothing to worry about. If I chose to, I could kill him as easy as breathing.” He answers plainly. That makes his guts plummet, just in time for Equius to say something even worse. “In truth, the responsibility for the events on that meteor were mine.”

 _That_ sends him reeling. He has to sputter over the information for a second, lifting his palms up in protest. “Whoa, _whoa_. Dude, that's a fucked up way to think about it. You were a kid. If you have to blame anybody, blame me– I was the one in charge. Hell, I was the one who told you to track him down– to _kill_ him. Either way somebody would have been dead. If I had just gone after him in the first place– ”

“Blaming someone else would be easy.” Equius's grimace is the only sign of his discomfort. He lifts an arm once to carefully adjust his shades, fingers almost trembling. Karkat thinks he can see one of the fractures spider further across the glass. “But unlike some people, I practice... restraint.”

_Ouch._

Equius watches for some time, and then unfolds his arms. “How about a deal?”

_Oh?_

He offers one gloved, slightly damp hand. “I will not repeat my mistakes, and you will not repeat yours.”

In another context, it could be a threat. He supposes he deserves worse, but the last thing he needs is to stand here with a face hot with shame while Equius stares him down. He'd made this call a long time ago, about Gamzee, about _this_ at least. Waffling at the slightest discomfort would be an injustice to both of them, so he reaches out and carefully takes the treaty prong. Equius' grip hardly even closes, but he still feels the bones of his fingers strain together, knuckle against knuckle.

“Okay. This has been really eye-opening for me. Good lesson, buddy.” He tugs his hand away and shoves both into his pockets against the chilling evening air, fighting to settle the hammering of his beatpump. “Thanks for the couch. Now please, go home. I am tired as shit.”

“Yes. Good night.”

He doesn't wait for Equius to get more than a few meters down the road before he retreats back into his own home, shutting the door.

\---

When he finally gets inside, it's like the entire world comes down on him. The exhaustion left by that conversation layers down onto the existing strain, and only dimly aware of himself beneath it, he goes towards the couch– either to sit down, or promptly expire.

It's a fine enough thing, upholstered with whatever could be salvaged– curtains, he thinks, dim and brown. There was no telling where they came from, only now that they sat in his living room cut and sewn around a collection of wood frame and stuffing. Or whatever they were using to make furniture, over in the workshop. He doesn't know. If it was good, for a recuperation bench, he wouldn't know that, either. Anything would be enough as long as it could hold him up.

He lays down on it with a groan, watching the wooden beams of his ceiling above him with a growing unease. Unwanted thoughts and ideas linger stubbornly in his pan, competing with aches and weariness. Something is twisting around in there, a crude, awful feeling.

_This is your fault._

Eventually the creaking sounds of footsteps come from above, and he waits, reluctant as he hears them making their way down the stairs.

“Karkat?”

“Yeah?” he answers.

“You want dinner, brother?”

His stress instantly deflates, and he sighs out in guilt. “Oh. Yeah, Gamzee, that'd be great.” He pauses. “Do you need help?”

“Naw, motherfucker, this much I got.”

“Okay.”

At the table, Karkat separates the various elements of his meal, pushing the vegetables through their sauce. He keeps chewing the same piece of venison, even after it's tender enough to swallow. It's good, like all of Gamzee's food. But whenever he looks up, he catches his own reflection there in the window, or on the surface of his fork, and very occasionally that look on his face that reveals the trouble in his gut.

He's sure Gamzee's been having to look at it too, all through dinner. That's what finally gets him to drop his silverware.

“Gamzee–” he stops, holding back. “Have I– have I been doing okay?”

Gamzee pauses, looks up from their meal. There's hesitation, but they're trying to hide it, trying to sound reassuringly calm. “On what kind of a thing, brother?”

He blinks a few times before answering. “This. Us? Everything.” His own reflection awaits him when he looks back to his plate, picking the fork back up to prod at a lonesome cube of potato. “People are okay with it, or at the very least they're resigned to keep out of my fucking business. But. I worry. I think they worry.”

“Thought you said it ain't about what they thought.”

His guts go a little cold just thinking about it, despite the warmth of dinner in his belly. “Not about you, about _me_. It's just–” He stops, stabs the thing on his plate meekly a few times before words finally crawl their way out of his throat. “Can't you appreciate the situation I'm in, here?”

The table goes quiet, because he stops fidgeting. Gamzee is as still as a springbeast in glare columns, looking across the table with eyes softened by some kind of indecision. Karkat tries to avoid them, instead looking down at his own distorted reflection in the utensil's curve.

“I ain't meant to be a situation to you,” they mumble.

“Doesn't help,” he grumbles back. He doesn't wait for an answer. “Equius blames himself for what happened, you know? And god knows what Terezi actually thinks. It's impossible to fucking tell, I mean she still hangs out with Vriska. How isn't it the same?” He knows he should stop, but the stress of everything is built onto him in layers and he's hoping for some piercing clarity, something to make it less. “You weren't there when she yelled. I'm still thinking about it. I just wish I could make her– you know. Like I could make things right.”

“What she feels ain't a thing to be made right, Karkat.”

He doesn't expect that. “What? Yeah, I know, I get that–” his face starts to color in frustration, and there's no way he can look up at their mixed expression _now_. Instead, he babbles. “What about how _I_ feel? It's like this entire goddamn place could blow up into a pile of ash at every moment. God knows it's happened before. I feel like there's an eviscerbeast around every fucking corner. Sometimes I feel like the world's ending– I just– I want–”

What does he want? It's staring him in the face, really. When he lifts his eyes, he watches Gamzee's tracing his own in pity.

Finally the request gets out of his mouth. “Can I pacify you?”

Gamzee goes a little stiff. His beatpump gives a stern twist, at that, and the words wring out of his mouth. “I know, just– can you just _let_ me? So I can feel some confidence about this? About _something_?”

The twist of their shoulders and the way their eyes dart down to their hands, curled and tense, is answer enough before they even speak. He's feeling all the parts of himself plummet, before that rejection. “I ain't been ready, brother. I'm sorry.”

 _Of course._ “Can you at least tell me _why_?”

It looks as if they're trying, at first. The words don't make it out, stuck behind how Gamzee pulls their lips between their teeth, keeps their eyes low. There's nervousness building there, he can see it, so he's already about to move before they do.

Gamzee stands from the table, and he goes to follow. He circles to stand in front of them when they turn away, reaching slowly for their wrists as they go to cover their face. Gamzee recoils, shuddering, fingers bent to give their claws some extra stability. But they don't scratch, or struggle. Their breaths come quick all the same, narrow pupils surrounded by bright lilac.

“Brother, stop.”

“It's okay–” Maybe if he's gentle enough, slow enough in the way he reaches for them, it'll work; they'll melt like they did, they'll purr and cave and go limp against him like they did...

That's not what happens. Gamzee's palms connect swiftly to his shoulders to push him away. He can see their pulse in their throat, hammering away as fast as his own. “Motherfucker, I'm telling you _no_.”

He stops briefly against his own panic, the feeling that if he doesn't make this right, it will all end– some terrible feeling, like hanging off of a precipice, dangling over some lonely fate that's all too familiar. “This is what I'm supposed to do. Just– let me do my damn job!”

Gamzee recoils again, retreating against the far wall. Their eyes are wide, just like they'd been in the field, and in his mind it all blurs together into one long moment with nothing in between.

He backs away, curling his open hands into fists. “Fine. I get it! I'm not good enough, is that it?”

That fear turns to pity, sweet and saccharine like always, and Gamzee almost comes closer. “Karkat–”

“No! See how _you_ like it!” He swats away the one lifting hand that comes towards him, and backs away to reinforce the distance.

It takes him a second longer to see that miserable look in his moirail's eyes, and there's nothing he can do to fix it– nothing in his entire pan that even resembles a good idea– and he stands there, somewhere between horrified and furious, before he finally turns away and goes to clean up dinner.

He leaves the plates there by the sink after scraping them, then turns back to the hive to stomp past his wilting moirail.

“It's your turn to do dishes,” he snaps, over his shoulder. Then he sets himself down on the couch to huff and stew, digging the fingers of each grubby hand down into his sweater.

The noise of the plate shattering against the wall turns him back. His own pump beats and his pan spins, and Gamzee hangs there looking just as stunned, eyes glued to the spray of scattered porcelain on the floor. When they finally move, it's in retreat, hobbling back up the stairs towards the slab. Karkat lifts from the couch. _Oh no you don't._

He chases after them, starting up the first step by the time Gamzee is halfway to the second floor. “Hey!”

Karkat hurries up the stairs, stopping only as he reaches the top and sees Gamzee move to the bed. They fall down to it with a wince for the weight in them. He ignores it, even if he's never seen anything more piteous. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

There's a pause. Not long, but long enough. Something changes in Gamzee's posture, and the next time Karkat meets their eyes he meets something unexpected. Something sharp, purposeful, a look he hasn't seen for sweeps.

He swallows back his unease. “ _Well?_ ”

“...You're thinkin this is charity, even when it hurts,” Gamzee starts. Both of them stand in stunned silence, and Karkat hesitates blankly. Gamzee fills the gap with panicked verbal momentum. “Do you gotta take at from me every motherfucking thing?”

“ _What?”_

“I'm scared, brother.” Gamzee carries on, standing from the bed. “Because you think this to be motherfuckin charity. Like you got the right to give, and I ain't good enough for it to refuse. Like you ain't been asking at me to be here. Like you ain't been touching me in my motherfuckin sleep, or when I'm beggin at you not to, then tellin at motherfuckers how you ain't to want me around.”

His jaw bounces hollow against the useless buzz of his pan, until one thing finally blurts out baffled and incredulous. “I _do_ want you! I want you so bad I can't fucking stand it, that's what I've been trying to prove to you!”

“That ain't _love,_ ” Gamzee answers. The intensity of their eyes doesn't meet their throat. They tremble, as if shaken by the effort taken to speak above a murmur– their voice is weak in its volume, forced and cracking. “I ain't wanted to hurt you, brother. I've been trying, keepin all this the motherfuck inside where it can't be gettin to anybody's pump biscuit–” They stop, dart their eyes about the room in delerium. “I don't know how to be making you understand, I ain't wanted to be nothin wrong to anybody.”

“You're _not_ ,” he argues. There has to be a way to fix it. “You're fine, I just– I need–”

“What you do to me _ain't love_ ,” they repeat. “Not to me, or Terezi, or _any_ motherfucker!”

Karkat's hands ball into fists. He feels the heat flood his face and a feverish, terrified lurch in his gut before the words come out, almost frothing. “And what would _**YOU**_ fucking know about it, _huh_?”

The effect is not the hot rebuttal he expects. It's a subtle chill that comes over the fire in those eyes.

That does it. His nails bite into his own palms, into fists that might swing, and his breaths come out in huffs that dare to be further accusations, insults, demands– curses, strings of nonsense he can feel unraveling in his head. He storms down the stairs and out the door, letting it fly open on the hinges and bang itself back ajar in his wake. He gets five steps down the road. _How fucking dare he._ Ten. _After all I've fucking done!_ Fifteen... _After all I've..._

He comes to a slow stop, self-imposed, still clutching his fists like mallets. He raises them to his hair, instead, and the anger boils up into a groan in his throat, something he muffles with his own teeth. He suppresses the surge as best he can, realizing how much a difference those cool palms had made... A few seconds pass, then a few more. The picturesque sunset and noise of songbirds press strangely in on his indignation. A surreal feeling creeps slowly on the edge of his rage, daring to snatch it away, and that widens his eyes.

Oh, no.

 _You need to go back._ He stares forward obdurately against the thought, as if he can willfully block it out. _You have to go back._

It's a small idea, compared to his feelings, but insistent. He whips himself around, forcing his legs to comply even as the tantrum still threatens vengeance in his protein sack. By the time he comes to the door, it's as if that half of him is lagging behind, and halfway up the stairs it's pleading with him out of terror. When he's on the second floor, he's managed to shut up even that.

He looks for Gamzee. They're not on the bed. It only takes a sweep of the block before he spies them curled into a surprisingly compact lump in one of the room's corners, a narrow shoulder tucked down against the tangent walls. His heart drops a mile, and twists, and wrings out every stupid thought he's ever had. He nearly sways under the sensation of them all draining away, fleeing like scurry creatures off a sinking boat.

_Go. Go, go, go._

He stands like a rock. His arms hang like useless ropes.

It's his feet that first listen to him, moving him towards that heap of troll in the corner, and his legs that rest him down in a kneel a safe distance away. Gamzee uncoils just enough to shoot a wary stare over their knees.

“Gamzee,” he starts. “I'm sorry.”

The defiance in that look wilts, quickly, just like Gamzee's defeated posture. “It's alright, brother.”

“It's not alright!” He doesn't mean to shout, but the urgency won't let him go. “Just look what I do to you. You were finally opening up to me and I– I yelled at you.” He lifts hands up to his hair at his own stupidity, gripping a frustrated handful. “I don't know what's wrong with me. Of all the dipshit first-rate assholes in the universe, you had to get stuck with me.”

Gamzee's look is almost pitying, and that makes him drop his hands from his hair. He sighs, looks to the floor, feeling that awful thing collect in his gut, colder and more ominous than regular shame. In the corner, Gamzee still trembles.

He looks back up, slowly. “Are you okay?”

There's not really any coherent answer. Just Gamzee focusing on their claws, unsure.

He flounders, looking down to the fraying cuffs of his sweater and picking at the pearls of lint. “You were right. I don't– know how to do this,” he admits. “Clearly I fucking don't. I keep fucking everything up.” But he looks up, at the end. “But I want to try. Gamzee, I really do.”

“I know,” Gamzee says, sweet and soft, in a way that breaks his pump right in two.

“Just tell me, what can I do to make it better?”

That pulls some anguish from Gamzee's hesitant expression, dulled with some kind of emotional exhaustion, before their request comes out strangely cool for what it is. “Kill me, brother.”

“Oh, god. Gamzee.” That brings him in. He reaches out, takes them carefully in to lay on his chest while he strokes their hair. It breaks whatever dam was holding back those worrying sobs, the ones that shake them silently. He'd shush, if it felt anywhere near appropriate. Eventually he works out of his own unease enough to help them up against him, to their feet or as close as they can get, and back towards the bed where they can lay down. He sits beside them, watching them fold slowly around their distended middle.

There's one thing he can't stop himself from asking, something he should have asked from the beginning. “Do you–” Karkat chokes on the question, forces himself to restart. “Do you still want to be with me?”

Gamzee lays there like an animal playing dead, or something just as bodily absent, looking frightened, and to his heart's treacherous approval, conflicted. Their eyes hold on each other, and there's a long time before that look goes from pump-breaking fear to a dim, tragic unease.

“I gotta think on that, brother.”

The blood seems to drain down out of his pan like a bottomless cup, and holds no thoughts. There's a similarly empty feeling in his hands, a faint dizziness, a buzz that settles into his horns entirely different from pale bliss. He grips his fingers into each other, feeling them damp and somehow more useless.

“Can I kiss you,” he asks finally. His voice comes out breathy, his eyes watering. Gamzee nods after a moment of stillness, so he lowers, settling palms to the mattress as he rests his lips on Gamzee's forehead, then their mouth, gentle enough to excuse how he lingers. Gamzee is so warm, so close– his hand sinks loosely into the fabric of their shirt, threatening to cling. His pump screams at him; _Don't let go._

He does. He draws away, leaving them alone there on the bed, where they lie as still as if a mountain of weight was upon them. They watch him, with a look that's almost sorry. He stands with the last of his willpower; the walk to the stairs and onward is slow, but uninterrupted by anything but the noise of Gamzee turning in bed behind him.

He goes downstairs, sitting himself there at the table. His body feels strangely immobile, all the hyperactivity going to his mind. A different person is up there, his younger self, still hunting down any reason to justify his own hysteria. He has all the skills he needs to find something to yell about or someone to take it out on, himself if he has nothing else. He could do that, go running to someone who would listen to him tear himself to pieces. But what would the point be? What good would it do? Staring over his own hands, into the wall of his empty living room, he feels somehow too tired for all that. It's like he'd aged five sweeps when he wasn't looking.

His heart hurts. His head hurts. He needs to sleep.

Eventually he takes himself to the couch, lying along it and throwing a blanket over his shoulders. It's then that his thoughts even out of their weird, noisy buzz and into something coherent. _They're not_ _ **yours**_ _, you idiot. Any of them._

“Ugh,” he mutters, faintly. But that seems to be all his pan has to say. It's quiet, after that. Not just outside, but inside, and he blinks faintly at the newness of the sensation. He breathes in, and out, watching the cold hearth, feeling oddly still in every part. If he has a thought, it echoes around in his skull without retort.

It's not for a few minutes that he hears the soft footsteps padding down into the kitchen. He goes still; they hesitate out there in the dark, but then they approach. He thinks about pretending to be asleep, but then there's a warmth crawling beside him, nearly close enough to touch. When he opens his eyes, Gamzee is there, forced into proximity by the limited space available.

Wordlessly, he brings them close, and they wrap their arms about his torso in answer. “Didn't want to think alone,” they confess, into the quiet of his hive.

It's good enough for him. He puts them in his arms, breathes in their scent, and listens to their fluttering heartbeat. He soaks in every bit of their presence that he can, for as little as he deserves it. The couch is small, but if they stay very still and very close, there's just enough room for the both of them.

Sleep, though troubled, comes quickly.


	13. Intermission 03

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May contain Vriska! *
> 
> (* Absolutely contains Vriska)

***

 

Intermission

 

***

 

“Don't get me _started,_ ” Vriska starts, sipping carefully at the edge of her bright orange drink.

Whatever was in this thing, she finds it _so unbelievably gross_. If Feferi had been clearer about what these beverages were going to taste like, she definitely wouldn't have come, not even to get a chance to absolutely destroy Eridan at card games. Half the point was to see what the fuss was about, anyway– the concept was dumb enough on its own, let alone after she'd had to find out the awful things were disgusting, to boot. How stupid would you have to be to drink this?

She takes another sip of the glass, as if the flavor might change. It doesn't. “I don't know _what_ her problem is.”

“I alwways thought there wwas somethin wweird about Ter,” Eridan confesses, from across the table. In the middle rests their completed game of Go Fish, _all the pairs_ resting comfortably before her in a victorious pile, and he idly collects the cards. “Somethin... unstable.”  
  
“Pff, yeah. That's the word alright.” She picks up the glass again out of habit, reconsiders, and lowers her arm. No way that abomination is going near her mouth ever again. Feferi notices.

“What's wrong, hun? Too strong?”

Not wanting to admit it, she swirls the liquid in its cup gently. “Uh, naw, just don't feel like getting drunk tonight.” _Or ever. It's so disgusting. How do they drink this crap??_

“Shoulda said somethin before I made them, then.” Eridan insists, standing to take the glass out of her hand. She lets it go, gladly. “You want a virgin?”

She squints. “Excuse me?”

“He means no alcohol.” Feferi explains. Vriska answers with a shrug, and he leaves it to go mix another, being the night's official bartender. A hobby he'd picked up, or something. To be honest, she hadn't really been listening. It interested her about as much as turnips or fishing; not at all. Was that really all there was to do around here? Pick mushrooms? Get drunk? Play cards?

Once he leaves, she waits until he's out of earshot. Feferi then gets the brunt of her attention; Vriska watches as she shuffles the deck, and folds her own arms out of a lack of anything to do with her hands. “Soooooooo. Why are we hanging out with him, again? Didn't he kill you?”

Feferi lifts her shoulders. “Glub glub, shrug.”

She blinks in disbelief. _You're just as loopy as Pyrope._ “Um? What do you mean, _shrug_?”

“I mean glub glub shrug!” She sticks out her tongue, returns to sorting the cards. “Don't get me wrong... It's not that I'm not anglery. It was just so long ago. It's hard to still be emoceanal after all this time. So many things changed since then.”

Not _that_ many, she thinks, but keeps it to herself. Whatever Feferi feels about it, she's at least being honest, practically radiating that indifference. Confidence, or delusion? They can be the same thing, in the end. That much, she's lived to know.

“I _guess_.”

Feferi grins. “It kelps that he totally groveelled about it for like, a week. So I figured, let the bouy off the hook! It's waterever to me, I just can't go my entire life hearing about it. But if he tries it again, he's really in for it!”

She has to smile, at that. “Ice cold.”

“You know it!” Feferi's teeth are in sharp, tall rows, like somebody else she could think of. Feferi sets the completed deck in the middle of the table and reaches for her colorful beverage, taking a hearty swig. Vriska cringes, even at her refreshing _'ah.'_ “What about you? You used to _date_ him, whatever happened to that?”

She rolls her eyes so intensely, there's a dim ache in her skull. “Oh, please. That was just some stupid thing I was trying out from Mindfang's journal. Wasn't nearly as exciting in real life.”

Feferi snorts. “You really did everything just because you read it in some soggy old book?”

“Not _everything_ ,” she defends. But as she hears it come out, it sounds more insecure than she means it to, and eventually she buckles down on avoiding the subject. Feferi notices her withdraw, and smirks knowingly, but looks away to sip her beverage.

Eridan returns with a new glass, and after setting it down, stretches pointedly. “Alright, think I'm turnin in for the night.”

Feferi had already had her hands on the cards, and looks up in disappointment. “Aww, no new game?”

“Naww, I got wwork tomorroww.” He adjusts his glasses, cards a hand through his hair– the purple stripe has grown out a bit, with nothing to dye it. “You ladies enjoy yourselves.”

“Oh, we will,” Feferi grins, sending Vriska a wink. She picks up her own glass again, hiding behind it and the taste of something delightfully _not_ like hand sanitizer poured in cough syrup. _Ugh._ While Eridan ascends the stairs, Feferi deals out another set of cards, smiling brilliantly when she sets the deck aside.

“So,” she starts. “Ever played heads up poker?”

The game is confusing and stupid, Vriska decides. Confusing and stupider the more beads and tokens Feferi seems to be squirreling away on her side of the table, but it trails on. Over the cards, she fills the gaps with talking, so much that she has to be reminded to take her turn.

“...And _then_ she acts like I started it,” she concludes, retelling every detail of the day in the library she can think to visit, for at least the second time. Feferi raises her eyebrows, clearly bemused in _some_ way.  
  
“Wow.”

“Yeah, she's really lost it. And it's a shame, because she used to be so cool. It's whatever, though. I would be too if I had to spend three years on a rock with Vantas following me around. _Gag_.” She even makes the gesture, sticking out her tongue, and Feferi gives an inebriated giggle. “Did you see their fight? _That_ was rich. So fucking typical.” She poises her glass in front of her lips for another swig. “But really, I'm over it. I don't even fucking care.”

Feferi bares all of her pointy teeth as she starts to drink. “Karkat? You sound just like him.”

Vriska's protein tubes give a spasm of disgust, and she struggles between the options of spitting the juice out or gulping it down. She has just enough time to choose the latter, and gasps at the effort. Feferi's grin widens. “ _What!?_ ”

“Vriska, you've glubbed about nothing but Terezi all night! Even with a smoking hot fish babe dropping hints on you all glubbin evening.” She sighs, blowing a tuft of perfectly curled hair out of her face. Vriska feels herself turning blue.

“I have _not_ been– _hints_?”

“You're totally obsessed! So Terezi is dealing with some weird shit. Give it a rest! Do _you_ for a change.” She's gathering the cards, shuffling them for a new game– some time during the conversation, she'd lost to Feferi and hadn't realized at all. “Why do you have to be up in her business, anyway?”

No matter how hard she wills her lungs to spit out an answer, they don't. She lets her gaze fall to the table, folding her arms in a way she's determined not to let look too much like a pout. Peixes deals the cards, and gives a bubbling chortle anyway, allowing absolutely no dignity to her brooding.

“Now I get why you and Eridan dated,” she says from behind a hand, one that covers a gleaming grin. Vriska glowers.

“What's _that_ supposed to mean?”

Feferi only shakes her head, lifting her hand from her mouth to sample her drink. But that hardly matters. That expression says it clear as day; _You're both desperate nerds!_


	14. No Tigers pt 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some mentions of blood, and that xeno-ness I talked about earlier, but I've done my best to make it all only mildly gross. Take care, readers.

**Part 3**

 

 

Terezi runs her thumb over the silver chain in her pocket, letting the conversations of the town hall waft over her. Her claw catches gently against each link, feeling it loop into the next, and to the next, all the way back to where she started.

It's time to give this thing back, but cursed as it is it's been a nice enough talisman for her thoughts. The picture is coming together, slowly, like links in a chain. All she has to do is get the ends to meet.

She's still lost in thought when the announcements conclude and people start getting up to leave. About time to find Karkat, she thinks. But that's not who approaches her first.

“Sup,” says Dave, while she stands from her chair. “Got a minute?”

“Got several,” she says with a grin. Even with the shades, it's obvious to tell his returning smile reaches his eyes.

“Great, you've been hard to track down, you know? Wait, before I say anything, you been okay?”

“I've been great,” she says, finding it more honest than usual. She's surprised he asked, but it makes sense to. “Your sister had me over, we had a great time. Kanaya got drunk.”

“Oh my god. I can't imagine that. Can vampires even get drunk?”

“Technically, she's not a vampire!” Terezi gives a quick sniff of the air to make sure miss mint-wasabi isn't lurking in earshot, but a clean pallet ensures their privacy. Not that she thinks Kanaya would mind, not beyond a little awkward amusement. “She was fine, Dave. I think she actually had fun for a change.”

“Kanaya has fun all the time. Right? She has to. I'm pretty sure I saw her have fun at least _once._ ” He reaches up, adjusts his shades. “Okay, never mind-- Terezi, how do you feel about parties?”

She shrugs. “Love 'em. Why?”

“Having one for Tavros. Top secret, inviting only the coolest people. Also Karkat.”

That actually makes her snort, but she even feels a little bad. At least it makes Dave smile, and it feels like– at least for a moment– she can actually talk to people. Her head isn't chasing her in circles, not right now. “Sure. When and where?”

“A few weeks now. I would've invited you sooner, but you had some stuff going on and I didn't want to get in your business. I know you're a busy lady.”

That makes her smile. _You don't know how right you are._

“Oh yeah. Only the most serious cases for me, these days.” The way she taps her cane, she thinks, is as bold as the way Rose had winked at her from over the couch a few nights ago.

He nods, as if understanding– she thinks he might. He often pretends not to understand when he does, but always says outright if he doesn't. At any rate, he doesn't pry. “Well, I'll let you go. Glad to see you feeling like yourself again.”

“Like somebody, anyway,” she agrees. Then the necklace in her pocket jogs her memory, and she fishes it out with her free hand; the silvery taste of its glimmer is like licking a caegar in dim season, and she sucks on the back of her teeth to clear the flavor before she speaks. “Hey, can you do me a favor?”

Dave's shape moves enough in a way she guesses was some kind of nod, so she holds the thing out. “Can you hand this to Karkat? I was borrowing it. I'd do it myself, but, you know. Mysteries to solve. Plus, Karkat.”

“Ha. No problem.”

He takes the thing, witless to its tragic implications; in his hands it's only a bit of metal, anyway, though she thinks she can catch a whiff of suspicion towards the symbol. Well, let him wonder about it. It's not her problem anymore, and it doesn't have to be. The whole story is bigger than that thing anyway, she's sure of it.

_On to bigger things, then._

 

**\---**

 

Despite leaving while the sky was still dark, Karkat arrives to work late. Alchemization had eaten up the first hours of the morning, pouring over the dim glow of the machine as he'd tried to suss out the conversion of his less-culturally-valuable novels into pain medication. Rose had demanded he take notes on the old copies, which he did without fondness. Romance was becoming a sore subject.

Rose wasn't there to assist him in the quiet erasure of some of the last surviving items of Alternian literature, or overlook it mournfully, so it had taken all of his own meager understanding of what to preserve and what to leave to merciful oblivion. But he'd managed, and even if it's a half-hour later than he meant, at least he doesn't walk into the fields empty handed.

Sollux is already there and well underway. Before grabbing his tools, Karkat steels himself, and manages an approach.

“Hey,” he starts, digging into his pocket. Sollux turns up from the knee-high wheat, just in time to see Karkat produce the little white bottle. “Um, your migraines– I went ahead and made some, for when they get really bad. And... let me know, if you need some time off. We'll make it work.”

He gets a skeptical look, but not a cold one. Sollux takes the bottle and pockets it unceremoniously, probably as a favor. The awed stare he gets after is anything but, and before he can extract himself to go work the troll starts his thanks.

“You didn't have to do that,” Sollux assures, but his tone is already speculative _,_ if not a little soured by their last encounter. His next words seem like as much a peace offering as any, permission to exist without enduring too much cynicism. “Hope you didn't have to throw away anything too valuable.”

“Just some old books,” Karkat shrugs. He hides both his hands into his jeans, trying for all the world not to look like a man with a bruised ego. “Nothing really serious. Just garbage, really, I'm glad to be rid of it.”

“Ugh, not that old romance stuff? You used to love that.”

“They're fucking terrible, Sollux. Really, I expect you to understand when a man needs to clean house a little.” Sollux's grin is knowing and sharp enough to pierce through his blustering, but almost entirely without malice, so he sighs out into the brightening sky before oversharing. “I've just. Been doing some thinking lately. I guess I've got the real thing now, or at least I'm trying.”

“Yeah, that.” Sollux's hand rests near his pocket, considering the shape of the bottle. It wouldn't be polite or fair for either of them to mention Terezi, not now, but the thought is in the air unspoken or no. “Normally I'd be content to file that away as not my fucking business, but hell, I'll do you a solid. How's that going?”

Karkat's stomach twists. It must be obvious on his face, because the look Sollux has now is warily sympathetic, and realizing how it must appear he's quick to explain.

“I'm... it's a work in progress. I'm learning.” It's as simply as he can say it. “That's all.”

Sollux pauses, debating a response. He can almost feel the scrutiny pass over him, so he huffs out another breath while Sollux turns back to the fields. “...You do seem different.”

His eyebrows, and hopes, raise. “In a good way?”

“Yeah.” A bemused smirk closes the subject, to Karkat's infinite relief. “Best of luck, okay?”

“Okay,” he answers. “You too.”

He ends up starting work just as the sky is a nice, rosy pink, and goes on until he's enduring the fierce blue of daylight and its accompanying heat. It's never as hot or blistering as Alternia, but it never won't unnerve him. Not after six sweeps of a world that would burn you alive in the daylight. It was one of the first things the planet had branded into his pan, and would probably be one of the last to leave.

All he wants is to break for lunch and go find some shady spot to isolate himself in, when he sees a familiar shape land by the road and come jogging up to the fields.

Tavros is out of breath by the time he arrives, and at a few meters off Karkat rushes to meet him. He never breaks his stare while his heaves of breath shake his wings, and in a minute he shares his news.

“It's Gamzee. They think, it's happening.” He rubs sweat away onto his wrist. “Kanaya told me to get you.”

Karkat drops his rake down in the grass by the wheelbarrow of tools, looking over his shoulder to the others. Jane is already following, and Sollux gives an oblivious but permissive nod. That's all the confirmation he needs to look back, and start off in the direction Tavros had came.

Tavros' flight lends him a sizeable lead and eventually he disappears beyond the tops of far trees; Karkat's envy almost boils up into indignation, feeling the gravity twice as hard every time he lands on one of his feet. Already his lungs and legs complain, as the road and bushes whiz pass, but with Jane's pace to keep up with his mind won't let his body quit. _It just had to be now._

It's halfway that he has to pause. Jane falters for a second, looking behind her. Her intent to wait for him or at least her intent to consider it is clear, so he waves her away. “Go! I'll be right there.”

“Right,” she answers. “I'll tell them.” And just as she's pulling away; “I'll make sure he's okay.”

“I'm right behind you,” he insists. The placation only stings. “Come on, go.”

She re-hefts her bag against a shoulder, and takes off. He turns his back to the trunk of an especially sturdy tree and waits for the burn in his lungs to fade just enough, then rights himself, still dizzying, for another sprint. Why did he have to build that damn hive so _far away_?

When he gets there, the house looks deceptively quiet. He jogs all the way to the door, halting as he's about to barrel inside; there's some sort of commotion in there, and a plummet in his guts and a reeling of his thoughts happens at the sound of it. His heart aches. Gamzee is in his head and his pump biscuit all the same, and his worry of doing wrong begins to paralyze him from going in. His fear of finding something terrible having happened stops him completely.

He stands there rigid before he hears a pained sound, and then like lightning through him he has the energy that forces him through. The door snaps open and he stumbles into his own living block.

The scent and sight of blood, and Gamzee's labored breathing, are the last things he remembers before his vision goes dim, and the floor rushes up against his side.

 

 

When he opens his eyes again, the featureless blue sky waits to greet him. He blinks twice, and then Tavros' face appears, peering down out of the great blue firmament like some sort of bizarre moon.

“What” he mutters, and lurches upwards out of the grass, feeling himself dizzy. He rights himself onto a palm, resituating himself with gravity, and looks around his own front lawn in a panic. He almost lurches back towards his door, but one of Tavros' broad palms settles him back down by the shoulder, and he grudgingly takes the advice while his head clears.

“You passed out,” he explains. “Jane said, to take you outside, to get some fresh air.”

That's right. He endures the moment of soul-crushing shame with his palms to his face. He deliberately sucks in breaths, slow and deep. It's not until the third one that a thought manages to escape through his guilt. “...And why are _you_ out here?”

“I accidentally, hit Kanaya with one of my horns, a little,” he answers sheepishly. “Which I promise entirely, was not on purpose, but just a thing that happened. They kicked me out, though.”

He stares on, finding it entirely too easy to imagine in the brief commotion he'd seen. “Right...”

Two more breaths, and he closes his eyes and rights himself, stumbling back towards the door. Tavros hovers warily, just enough to block the way. “Are you sure...?”

“Listen, you, and–” He pauses, chewing his lip briefly to buy precious time for his better judgement. “And not because this has anything to do with you personally, but because I need to talk myself up here, and you're the only poor asshole unfortunate enough to get stuck outside with me. So tough shit for you. Got it?”

Tavros nods, bewildered.

“That's my moirail in there, even if– even if I'm some dirty mutant scum, even if we're having problems– even if there's a bunch of weird shit going on that scares me that I don't understand! I'm going in that room. Not a damn fucking thing could keep me out of it.”

“Uh,”

“Just try and stop me, Nitram! I fucking dare you. I absolutely fucking dare you right now to stop me from going in there.”

“I promise, I won't,” He answers, palms up in self-defense. The path to the door is just as unguarded as ever, and Karkat is finally left with only his own pan to wrestle against to get through to it. He huffs up his last breath of the warm spring air, rolls up his sleeves, and stomps back through the barrier into his home.

It's like before. Rose, Kanaya and Jane stand around the end of his dining room table, fashioned by necessity into a medical slab with the application of towels. That same smell of blood and strange, biological peril fills the room along with unfortunate wafts of various Alternian alarm pheromones, chemicals released in fear or pain. Gamzee's were familiar enough to him by now to know them immediately, even if they didn't fill the air.

Kanaya looks quickly over her shoulder as he storms to the side of the table, finally getting an angle at which he can see his moirail. He tries not to look at anything that could threaten his consciousness, staying locked to Gamzee's face once it comes into view. Karkat's expression melts into heartbroken, pump-spotting pity, the worst, most dangeorus kind that leaves the entire rest of the world pointless until he can make the pain stop. Gamzee doesn't look awful, but there's that vagueness in their eyes and the makeup smudged by sweat or maybe tears, and a scattered, desperate look to their face.

“Gamzee,” he starts, managing his wavering voice. His palm goes to their cheek instantly, as clammy as it is against his own sweaty palms. “Gamzee, I'm right here. I'm here, it's okay.”

“That's the second one,” Kanaya says to his left. There's a note of relief in her strained voice, and he's vaguely aware of her gathering some object into a bundle and handing it to Rose. He's tempted to crane his neck over and see, but can't bring himself to look away from his moirail, and is still half-frightened over the prospect of anything too gruesome. Jane grips one of Gamzee's hands gently at the wrist, keeping a pulse, but the other comes up to weakly clutch at his sweater sleeve. He meets it in his grip, finding the wrap of their fingers around his own to be weak and trembling.

“How is he,” He mutters, watching as Gamzee's eyes close. He moves his hand instead to rub into their hair, feeling what he thinks is a watery purr vibrating through them, cresting into a whine.

“Started about an hour ago,” Kanaya sighs, as focused on her patient as Karkat is on the way those claws grip his hand. Her voice only ever slightly raises from a steely, calm drone. “I think there was a bleed in the lining of the retention hollow. It's slowed, but I won't know until we're done.” Without missing a beat, she turns again over her shoulder. “Rose?”

“Viable, if I'm reading your charts correctly.”

“I'll check them myself later.” She turns back. “Jane?”

“Slow, but not bad.”

“Good.” She snaps open a fresh towel, but that's as much as Karkat lets himself watch before she returns to some sort of assignment with the biological horror in front of her. “Karkat, can you take over for her briefly? I need her to sterilize more equipment.”

“What?” He has just enough time to stammer it before Jane settles his grip around Gamzee's other wrists, thumb searching along until they both find that place where he can feel the efforts of Gamzee's bloodpusher.

“You're doing great, Gamzee,” she assures softly, between making sure his grip is correct. When her voice turns to him, it's much firmer. “Count over every ten seconds, multiply by six. Speak up if it goes under forty! I'll be right back.”

“Uh–” he steels himself against dizzying panic. _Are you kidding me? Don't you dare pass out._ _It's wiggler-grade math, Vantas, you can do it_. He says no more, fixating intently on the way his moirail's eyes blink open, meeting that awareness with all the sympathy he can give. If he doesn't look anywhere else, they'll both be fine. “I'm here, Gamzee. You're gonna be fine, I promise.” _One, Two, Three...._

The rest of what happens seems to pass in mayhem, winding down slowly through the last removal of the eggs. The controlled chaos of what was effectively the first few blips of their society's genetic mark on the future settles down into a hum of uncertainty. At some point, he'd hoisted himself up onto the table to hold Gamzee's head in his lap, petting back their hair and watching their stress and exertion fade into quiet, exhausted rumbling. They're still yet to say a word, and Karkat shivers, hoping the way he smooths down those wild curls does any good.

The hive is finally a little bit quiet, enough that he can shoosh low and soft and still be heard. He's barely aware of the others, not enough to be self-conscious, not now when Gamzee is at their most pitiful.

Tavros is allowed back inside, and while he, Rose and Kanaya deal with the eggs and cleaning up, Jane comes to the table to look over Gamzee's recovery. He suppresses an entirely inappropriate growl as she comes close enough to touch the troll he cradles there in his lap, wanting to feel relieved at the way she leans in with concern. It's hard, with the way his pan crackles in adrenaline. His nerves are absolutely shot.

“He hasn't spoken yet,” Karkat mutters to her.

“He's probably just tired,” she says, looking them over as unobtrusively as she can. “There was some blood loss, like she said. But he was a real champ, even when it got scary. I think he's gonna be okay. You're tough, aren't you, buster?”

He thinks he feels a bemused little noise rack through Gamzee's chest, but then it fades down into that same stressful, self-soothing purr. Jane nods, pats Karkat once on the back to reassure him, then goes back towards the towels. Though her voice and speech are kept cheery, he can see that hint of tension on her face. “We should clean him up, get him somewhere comfortable. A little rest, it'll be right as rain.”

Karkat nods, swallowing back his doubt. “Right... the couch.”

They clean Gamzee of any remaining mess, Karkat shushing through the obvious unease it causes. He avoids having to look at anything too gruesome, to avoid the chance of unconsciousness, but it's easy enough to imagine with the pile of bloodied towels appearing in the laundry bin at their side. He holds onto them tighter through every shudder of their body.

It's not until they have him on the couch, unmarred by blood or injury, that Karkat starts to relax. Gamzee seems drifting towards unconsciousness, but Jane assures him that his vitals are steady and all he needs is to sleep. He stays awake long enough to clutch at Karkat's hand, and protest desperately the one time Karkat tries to clean away the smudged facepaint.

“Not... infront of them,” he mutters, weakly. Karkat withdraws the rag like pulling from a flame.  
  
“Sorry.” The rule is bogus and ridiculous, maybe, and a part of him wants to yell _It's just shitty paint, Gamzee, and it's already ruined_. But that horrible exhaustion in their eyes makes those thoughts far away. Anything that makes them feel better. At the apology, Gamzee seems to relax, calmed by getting to keep their face. “I just wanted you to be comfortable, I'll leave it alone.” He pets back their hair instead, looking down on them for any clue as to what to say. “Just rest now, it's over. You did it.”

Gamzee cracks a weary but honest grin. “Sure did,” he mumbles.

That smile is all the world to him, and he lets his own be an answer in both relief and incredulity. He pets down Gamzee's cheek, paint and all, feeling finally some confidence in Jane's promises from before. Still. _That was the fucking worst._

It's not for a little while longer of being petted and fussed at that Gamzee stirrs, almost trying to sit up before they think better. There's still a fogginess in those purple eyes. “...Can I see them, brother?”

It takes him only a moment to realize they mean the eggs, and Karkat gets up. It's an odd request, but somehow he's almost ashamed he hadn't thought of it. “Right. Yeah, hold on.”

He pries himself away from the couch with some difficulty, wanting very badly to linger there where he can keep an eye on them. But in the end he manages, and walks through his bustling hive to where Kanaya leans over the results of their perigees of waiting. From here to the couch, it's like someone had set off a small bomb in his home, with people still flitting between various parts of the resulting wreck. He sighs, a little, imagining some of them might end up staying for dinner.

Rose watches his approach, but Kanaya remains focused on one, vaguely green sphere cradled there in the palm of her hand, held under the light from the window. She's testing it against the glow, searching through its transparency for flaws or imperfections. Watching, Karkat is stunned– he thinks he can see the vague, pale shape of something curled and spike-limbed in there, and something about it makes his hands go clammy. That's a _grub_.

What's more, it had been in his moirail. _In_ Gamzee. He's determined not to feel faint.

He almost doesn't have to ask; in a way, he wants not to, a pit in his stomach at the threat of bad news. It's not like he knows enough about any of this to guess, grim and mysterious as it is. “Are they...”

Kanaya looks over briefly from her work, giving a puff of breath and a smile. “Three viable eggs. Two rusts, and an indigo.”

He perks a little, in hope. “Is that good?”

“We don't have precedent for good. But I'd have been satisfied with even just one, on our first try.” She sets the one she'd been looking at down, picking up a second to rest on a scale by the sink. Had they lugged all this stuff over here?

“Gamzee wants to see them,” he says in a moment of clarity. Kanaya seems somewhat unhappy to have her work disturbed, but sets them all together in a basket of dry linens with motions that are precise despite her quickness. She can do everything so efficiently, now.

It's then that he can look at all three of them, huddled together in their cloth bedding. They're all a little larger than his fist, a smoky pale green, and he can barely tell the color of the veins running under that foggy, rubbery shell. It's strangely horrifying to be confronted with something so organic, so fragile. They're nothing at all like the clean little wigglers ectobiology had spat out; in a way, this was downright gruesome.

To think almost every troll he'd ever met, that had ever lived on his planet, had started out this way. But not him.

He's scared to touch that basket, suddenly. Like it might disintegrate in his aberrant grip. Rose sees his moment of terror and mercifully intervenes, taking it off of the counter. Kanaya stays, jotting notes into some sort of chart by the scale.

Gamzee looks just as tired when Rose and him arrive, but their eyes lighten in interest when they spot the basket, pupils widening. Rose is clever enough to set it by them, where they can roll to look down at those tiny spheres of life. Their expression is awed, but exhausted, and maybe even bittersweet– they reach out a hand, letting their claws rest along each one so gently as to hardly touch them at all.

Karkat sits on the couch by their feet, breathing in as the adrenaline wears off. It's really all done. He expects pride, or maybe accomplishment, looking on at having mitigated the monstrous, terrifying problem of reproduction without any death or dismemberment. But he doesn't feel that at all. Just _relief._

Gamzee is struggling to stay awake, and eventually lets Rose take the eggs back up in their little bundle and into the basket. He stays to give Gamzee a few more frantic paps; the clown, bless their heart, humors him for a moment with a gentle hand wrapped over his own, and a soothing purr. But then they're too tired to reciprocate, and Karkat leaves them be. He can tell his nervous energy is is only making it harder for them to recover.

He follows Rose over to Kanaya, a little too eager to put this all behind him. She's weighing the last one when he settles down heavy into one of the chairs pulled to her side, resting his heavy head against a palm. The limb trembles, slightly, until he sets the weight on it. He doesn't realize until then how he's shaking. “Fucking hell...”

She offers a reassuring smirk, before returning to her study of the egg's mass. Her indifference to it all is chilling, but perhaps not unexpected. She's been dealing with this more intimately than he had; his strategy had been to hardly think about it.

It had snuck up on him anyway, and there they were, with that strange bluish thing sitting in the decaying light of the window. Kanaya scoops it back up into her cool hands, and places it carefully beside the others. Karkat huffs out a whistling breath.

“What now?” he asks.

She's drying her hands on a rag, and never looks away from the assortment of eggs and instruments on the table. “More waiting. We should keep them warm, but not overheated, mist them regularly to keep the shells from getting brittle, but not enough to encourage mildew. Change the bedding daily. Monitor their growth.” She's rattling off the list a little too quick for him to follow, but it sounds simple enough– at least the gestalt of it– that he's not too intimidated by the threat of their new responsibilities. Besides, it's not really up to him, right? “A week, or a few weeks, and they'll hatch, and in about twelve perigees, their first pupation.” She folds her arms, and he can see the calculations for the future going on in her head, put at ease by her apparent command of it.

All the same, his mouth feels a little dry. “And after that?”

She looks over, for the first time. He realizes she doesn't know. More than that, he realizes from the lack of expression she never felt the obligation to.

Right. That's not her job. But who's is it?

A headache is flooding into the sudden lax of his overworked synapses, strained further by trying to imagine it. They have maybe thirteen perigees. Thirteen perigees before grubs are wigglers, and then nine sweeps before three brand new, adult trolls. He shivers all the way down to his reverberation lobes, giving a helpless sort of moan at the idea. The three small eggs seem to meet his stare expectantly.

_God, I'm sorry. You didn't sign up for this._

Kanaya politely ignores his distress, though he can feel her quiet if unknowing sympathy. She has a job to do; she can't let the future hold her down like it does him. But he feels almost paralyzed.

Maybe to comfort him, maybe to boast, she carefully brings one of them back into her palm and turns to face him, holding it out where he can see.

“Three is a good number,” she repeats. “They're a healthy diameter, and weight, with no discoloration or deformity. You can see the hornbeds forming here–” she points to two lumps of keratin, barely detectible under the muddy shell. They're tiny things, little masses with dark blue cores he can just make out.

He tries to detect the start of the head along the rest of the body; it's a tightly curled, vague thing, and profoundly unsettling. “Where are its eyes?”

“They're in there. Lids won't form until just before they hatch. Then, they'll get their pigmentation.” She turns it over a few times, in graceful and effective movements. “Here– you can see it starting to come in at the tail.”

Sure enough, there's a faint dark blue gradient forming from the back of the curled thing. It looks so small in there. He's still as repulsed as he is fascinated, but some strange, other feeling is starting in his pump biscuit. He pushes it away out of unease.  
  
Instead, he decides to lean away and let all the stress of the last few perigees float up out of his lungs and into the air. Kanaya smiles, returning the orb to the basket, and flicking on a battery-powered heat lamp resting beside them at the desk. She looks vaguely proud, and it finally occurs to him to congratulate her.

“Hey,” he says, getting her attention. “Good job. I mean that. You had to fly blind, but you did it.”

She nods, courteously. “The start of it, anyway.” With her work done, she stands up, and he follows to match her posture. When upright, she settles a palm against either of her hips and gives a gentle huff, the first hint of her exertion.

“We'll give him a few weeks rest, before the next batch. I want to make sure he has adequate time to recover to avoid a second bleed.” She gestures to the eggs, resting on the table. “If this is our average clutch, we'll need about three more of them before we reach a sustainable population. I think we can manage that within a half-sweep.”

He's nodding, until it dawns on him what she's saying, and then he goes a little cold. His limbs go still and heavy, his pan seems to refuse to follow. He looks to the eggs– to her– to the eggs, then back again. “Wait.”

She looks on at him, unsure, but endures the interruption with generous patience. He stammers briefly, the words trapped somewhere in his incredulity. “You want him to do this _again_?”

“Of course. We need more than this. We don't even know if they'll all live to grubhood, let alone pupation. If anything, this would be the time to overestimate.”

“Kanaya, _stop_ –” He lifts his hands to his hair, as if it can calm his racing thoughts. Gamzee's pain and Gamzee's sad eyes are as loud in his head as they've ever been, and he sputters out his protests desperately before he even knows what they're going to be. “I– _No_. You _can't._ ”

She's gone from agreeable to quizzical, and finally, skeptic. She looks down as if it's her that deserves the explanation, and while he panics for words he offers her a challenging look, gripping down claws against his scalp. “Don't you get it? It was bad enough the first time! You can't honestly be ready to put someone through that again.”

“This was a success,” she insists, an edge in her voice. She even darts her eyes back to the eggs. “It's working, Karkat. We just need more time.”

“Then I'll do it. Not him.” His heart plummets and his instincts recoil violently at the thought, but anything would be better than sending Gamzee back there. Anything in the world, even _that_. “Use me instead.”

She baffles, and flickers, her pupils slitting. “Absolutely not.”

“ _Why?”_ He demands, hands balled into fists. “I'm sick of people expecting so little from me! You think I couldn't handle it? Because I'm the mutant, right? Because I'm– this fucked up, aberrant _freak_. You don't want to risk it, _huh_?”

She crosses her arms, raising her volume. “Your mutation has nothing to do with this, _or_ your aptitude.”

“Then why! Is it because you actually give a shit what happens to me?” He throws an arm back, hoping to gesture to his moirail, to the couch where Gamzee lays, where all those dark feeling in his heart originate. “Would you let _that_ happen to me? Is that it?”

She's without protest. Her chest lifts with breathing and her eyes are stern, argumentative, but she listens, and in the silence more words barrel out of him, all the guilt he'd felt for weeks in sudden bursting clarity.

“We let something _horrible_ happen to him!” He bellows, hands buried in his hair. “We sat around congratulating ourselves about what good people we were when– there was someone _right there_ , that _needed_ us. That needed _me!”_ He shakes with the realization. “And we hurt him, we– just because we _could–_ ” He tries to keep his face steady through the threat of tears, but he can't, and his voice and jaw quiver hopelessly. “Kanaya, what did we _do_?”

Her anger softens only by a degree, exasperation being what drops her shoulders. She looks about to speak, when a voice comes from across the room.

“Brother...”

Karkat's pump nearly stops out of mercy, and he feels as if he could crawl out of his skin. But a better, paler feeling in his heart turns him around to see Gamzee having forced himself upright on the couch with an arm braced to the back, Rose hovering with wide eyes at their side. They meet eyes with Karkat, whose heart and stomach drop suddenly in unbearable, soul-consuming pity.

He rushes over, while Rose eases them down to their back, and sits there to quickly gather Gamzee's hands in his own. Kanaya lingers somewhere in the distance, not approaching, her glow faintly detectable on the edge of his vision. “Gamzee, don't hurt yourself, I'm here...”

One of those hands he clutches snakes out of his grip and reaches up, almost to his horror, to pap gently along his cheek. _Oh, god_. He reaches up to hold it there, smoothing his thumb along those bony fingers. His vision finally blurs and clears as the tears fall without blinking, the entire cabin swimming in the darkening sunlight.

Gamzee breathes in, slow and labored, before they speak. “I want to do this, brother.”

“No,” he protests weakly. “You're in _no_ fucking position to make that call. You're hurt, and exhausted, you're half-delirious– you're not thinking clearly, okay?” He grips that hand away from his cheek, clutching it in both palms. “I'm gonna look out for you. That's what I have to do, right?” It's a desperate, clueless plea. He's too ashamed to make any other kind of sound.

“Needs to be...” they mutter, fighting against their own weariness. “somethin good to come outta me, for once...”

“ _Not like this,”_ he begs. _You are something good,_ he wants to follow, but the moment the words are in his head Gamzee seems to have pushed themselves to their own limits, and flutters back into that dim unawareness to recover. He clutches that hand gently, finding himself mouthing the words anyway.

Rose assures him with a hand on his shoulder, and he rights himself from the couch to look back into the room. Kanaya waits, arms folded, not unmoved by the display in her own fashion; her narrowed eyes consider a corner of the house, the glow on her skin pulsing gently with unease.

He scrubs each wet eye with the sleeve of his sweater, stomps back into his living room, and looks her dead on.

“We have to talk.”

\---

 

The two of them excuse themselves outside and hopefully out of earshot. Jane and Tavros will be out here somewhere, sterilizing the used linens, but he doesn't care as much. This is too important to put off for complete privacy.

“Karkat,” she starts. He withholds a panicked urge to interrupt, wrapping his hands tighter into fists.

She notices his agitation and stands purposefully unmoved by it, slowly folding her arms. But she can't hide her nerves entirely, not with the glow brightly at home in her skin. It's her eyes that are brightest, a vivid lemon yellow and just slightly unsure.

“Need I remind you,” she begins, gripping each claw into her shirt in the opposing arm. “That Gamzee was a willing volunteer.”

“That's fucking _bullshit_ , Kanaya.” He doesn't mean to take it out on her. It's hardly fair, anyway, but the unfairness forms a tight rumbling tangle in his head, and he lifts his arms trying to brace his own palms against the settling ache. “We shouldn't have let him do it if we weren't going to take responsibility for what it did to him. We can't just–” He moves his hands away, palm-up towards the darkening sky. “Throw up our hands, say _'tough shit'_ like it wasn't our fault!”

She's unblinking, but there are other cracks in her composure. “He _still_ remains capable of his own choices. Even now, while you regret it.”

“Oh, yeah! That's great. Really lucky for us, huh?” He's getting hysterical. He's throwing all that guilt at her feet, turning himself inside out for lack of a better solution. “He was one of us, damn it– even before he was my moirail. Him _letting_ us doesn't make it _okay!”_  

When he looks up, she stands firm, sure of herself. She has to be– it's not her fault– he tries to remind himself, _not her fault_.

 _No, it was yours. You were the one that loved him all along, from the start, and took him and threw him away as you pleased, and now you're the one having to pay for it._ He swallows back his terror at the thought. _You wanted to be a leader, tough guy? This is what it is. This is what love is. Let them be who they are._

“Can you–” he stops, removing all rage from his expression in exchange for desperation. “Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me we couldn't have done better? That if it was anyone else, we _wouldn't have done better_?”

Kanaya is conflicted, but not moved. Not enough to concede, but enough she doesn't meet his reasoning with an attack. Instead, in her own stilted way, she tries to placate him. “You're scared for him. He's only tired.”

“Gamzee isn't ever _only_ anything,” he mutters frantically. “If you'd had to see what I've seen– if you knew...”

They fade into silence. Somewhere out there in the fields, the crickets feel safe enough to go back to chirping, and the sound seems to drown out that voice of reason that had come to him so clearly before. He's still leaking tears, and dabs both red eyes on his sleeve to join the rest of the mutant stains. Kanaya stands there, considering him silently.

Quietly, as if not to be overheard, she stoops her posture to speak. “I'll concede your point. But it changes nothing about our larger situation.”

“That doesn't matter.” He almost mumbles it, not wanting to be vicious. But the effect is quailing, so he silently clears his throat. “He's not going back there. _Nobody_ is.” He keeps his shoulders straight, builds up every inch of height he can get between his feet and his horns, tries to feel the sturdy mass of himself pressing up against gravity. “I'm canceling this project indefinitely. That's an order.”

He can't stare her down, at her towering height. He lowers his brows against his occasionally blurring gaze, instead, trying to look like all the world that giving a command this earnest doesn't terrify him. The weight of all these heavy lives are on his shoulders; before, because he was greedy for them. Now... now, he isn't sure why. Surely not out of delusions of competence.

The thought that he's condemned them all to some kind of genetic catastrophe– and wouldn't _that_ be rich– has just enough time to build before Kanaya's challenging stare and posture fade into a stiff acquiescence. She's not used to having to bend necessity to sentiment, he knows. But he can't let her, not about this. Not about Gamzee...

“Alright,” she says finally, crossing her arms. There's a hint of that lingering displeasure, without the pettiness she might have shown at six. Well, he's without the cruelty he would have shown, isn't he? He hopes to god. “It's your call.”

“Alright,” he agrees, trying not to be dizzy with relief, or let it show on his face. He has to stay firm, for his own sake. Despite the faint, swaying quality the world has, he finds his way back through the front door with Kanaya following close behind.

In his absence, someone had lit the hearth. He makes a straight path for the couch in front of it, where Rose sits by the chair adjacent to watch over his moirail. Settling down on his knees before where Gamzee lays, he reaches out to take their sleeping hands and hold them gently in his own. The world manages to slow down, just a little.

He stays there long after Rose gets up to help Kanaya tend to the fruits of this whole grizzly venture, feeling his heart tumble. He strokes his thumb over Gamzee's knuckles, over and over, watching their face and the rise and fall of their breathing. The patterns match the ache in his heart.

Kanaya appears over the head of the couch, leaning over slightly. “How is he.”

“Okay,” he mutters back, trying to scrub away the redness from his lookstubs. “What is it.”

She pauses. “I'm leaving to get some more things from the house. I'll be back in an hour.” And before she goes, another brief hesitation. “I take what you said seriously, Karkat. I really do.”

“Yeah. Same here.” His beatpump still hammers, realizing how affective the altercation had been. Red and stubby as he is, he thinks it's a wonder he maintains her respect. Let alone with everything else.

She nods, then departs, as silently as ever.

Some unknown amount of time passes there with him resting by the couch, nearly unseeing to the rest of his hive. He's vaguely aware that at some point, Tavros and Jane return, and there's some sort of discussion and resulting commotion in the nutrition block. He finds himself drained by the cocktail of panic and adrenaline and misery, enough his head occasionally bobs, then finally rests down along the couch near his moirail's arms. Just for a second...

Then someone is nudging him, and he lifts his muggy head with a groan, looking over to see Tavros producing a bowl of soup. He finds himself extremely hungry, and takes the thing wordlessly to shovel in a few bites before he attempts to speak. It's warm and thick and a little spicy, the red broth marbled with something opaque.

“Thanks,” he mutters, between spoonfuls. There's the pleasantly rubbery texture of cooked mushrooms and chunks of the venison that had been seasoned with– something. “Did you make this?”

Tavros nods. “And Jane, and Rose, so, it would be most accurate to say probably, that it was a collaboration of efforts.”

He nods, then thinks about how they helped themselves to the contents of his kitchen, and decides he's too tired to scold anyone. It's pointless, anyway; what else were they going to do? They'd all stayed here long past dinner. “I guess you guys are staying the night?”

“Yeah, that's, the plan.”

He isn't sure how they're going to figure out sleeping arrangements, and right away with the dimness of his own thoughts he knows he's going to be a terrible host.

Tavros opts to hover near the foot of the couch while he eats, overlooking the clown sleeping at his side. It's not until he catches a certain quality in that gaze, looking between them, that a question comes to mind. He asks it after swallowing down the last of the soup; “What were you doing here, anyway?”

Tavros looks up, as if broken out of thought. “Huh... ?”

“Today. You came and got me when Gamzee was–” what's even the polite word, for this? “...compromised. How did you know?”

He blinks a few times, then raises a hand up to his short mohawk, ruffling it thoughtfully. “Oh, uh, we were here, hanging out, a little. Then he um, started feeling, bad– by which I mean, more bad than normal– so, I went to get Kanaya, and then you, and then, we were all here.”

“Hanging out,” Karkat repeats, in a deadpan half from exhaustion.

There's an unmistakable flush to Tavros' complexion. “Um. Yes.”

He rubs at his own eyes again with a sigh, fighting off all the complaints in his body that tell him to find somewhere and collapse to sleep off the rest of the sweep, maybe even a good decade. Hell, a century. But there's no room on the couch that wouldn't disturb his moirail...

“Hey, um, maybe, you should get some rest,” Tavros suggests, folding hands together and resting elbows on his knees. The effect isn't quite patronizing, not from him. “We'll, look after him, promise.”

He knows that's true. He doesn't quite have the energy to resist common sense, even if his heart screams at him not to leave Gamzee's side, not for a moment, out of wanting to repay every moral debt. But he listens to his bodily agony, easing up off of the floor and answering Tavros with little more than a nod.

As he passes, he meets Jane, and Rose, in the kitchen. They're cleaning up the last of dinner, but he can see that leftovers sit bubbling on the stove. Jane turns to him, holding a freshly washed spoon. “Did you get your soup?”

“Yeah. It was good, thanks.” He wants to thank her for so much more, but he thinks there's a better time than when he's about to pass out in the middle of his own living block. Rose, by the sink, simply offers him a look that is both knowing and curiously concerned, but consoles him with a nod. What did they hear of his argument with their matesprit, outside?

He nods back, all the same, and stumbles up to his block where he's finally alone.

For all the warmth and commotion downstairs, his respite block is empty, and a little cold. The sunset had faded into the deeper blue of a fresh night, making the whole room dark, almost eerie. He grips his arms together and trots over to the slab, falling into it like he weighs the world.

It's empty, so he lays in the middle, looking out into the dark of the hive with the dying light at his back. Gamzee's books, and other gifts from Rose, sit either on the bedstand or on the shelves amongst his own novels. The only other possessions sit in that little brown bag, the one Gamzee keeps in the corner. There's so little, he realizes. But he would miss it so much, if it were to go.

It starts out slow, like his crying from before. But then he finally sobs, angry for feeling sorry for himself, heartbroken. He cries like a wiggler, muffling the sounds and the mutant tears down into one of the pillows, holding it against him like all those other things he doesn't want to let go. He feels three sweeps old, not _nine_ , and tiny enough that he very nearly wants for his lusus. There's not a chance anyone can hear him, down the stairs, but he tries to keep it quiet as hysterical as the emotions get. Finally breaths come in via involuntary, wavering gasps, and settle down into little hiccuping sobs that lurch his shoulders.

Once he's sure it's back down to sniffling and little miserable hics, he sets the thoroughly damp pillow back under his head. As much as his heart hurts, he can't stay awake for any longer.

 

\---

 

Gamzee wakes slowly, the sensations of pain coming to him first. For a terrifying moment, he isn't sure he's not lying in pieces somewhere, having dreamed all this in some awful, feverish moment of synapses struggling to fire through air and blood. _But that never happened, not really._

When he blinks aware, the world is warm and orange from firelight, and he looks up into the ceiling of Karkat's hive. His heart rate slows. Outside, there's fields and wood in the dead of night, and a sky full of stars, and a single moon, pale and round. It's surreal, but it doesn't go away just for being awake.

He'd done it, then. There's no getting up; the immobilizing ache in his middle and the resulting heaviness holds him down like the pain itself has a relationship with gravity. But it was over, and his exerted body was almost numb to its own emptiness. New, but familiar.

Rose sits at the couch by his feet. It takes him a while to notice, doing an inventory of the strange exhaustion through him. It's immobilizing, but in a way where lying still is a blissful relief. It's okay to be still. Even the pains can't contend with the way the world seems to hold him up, just for this moment.  
  
Rose puts down their mug of tea, and meets his eye. “Hey. How are you feeling?”

His first attempt at speaking doesn't work. It could have been frightening– but he thinks he must be fresh out of the chemical response for fear. If anything, he has a disoriented buzz up there, making him mumble around words until the third or fourth time. “Alright.”

It's true. Of all the things that could be, it's true.

 _Alright_ wouldn't have been the word he'd use, when it was happening. But at least he hadn't been alone. He shoves that forbidden sentiment down in with the other things, locking them away. But so many thoughts threaten to escape in his delirium. What was it he'd muttered to Karkat?

Anyway, his head is clearing. Especially as Rose leaves, and returns with another hot cup of tea, which he tries not to guzzle for the sake of his throat. It's weak, but that's fine. What he needs most is the water, and the warmth.

When he puts the mug down, Rose is watching him, as if they have a question. Upon noticing him noticing, they duck their gaze, looking down on the way they trace their thumb over the lip of their mug. “Did it hurt you very much?”

He shakes his head. “Nah, motherfucker...” His voice cooperates, slow but sure. “Easy as anything. Got happening all on its own. Just had to be there for it.”

He's lying, of course. But just enough to put them at ease, and it seems to work even if Rose detects his tone. He can't fool her. He's not trying to.

“I'm glad,” they answer. The subject changes quickly. “The eggs are healthy, as you saw. Congratulations would be in order, traditionally. But to be culturally appropriate, I don't think there's a term for what you've just accomplished.”

“What would you be calling it.”

They look surprised, then amused. “This is really Dave's area. He'd probably go for aluminum balloons. Congratulations, to the host of the horrific worm spawn.” Their grin is subtle but earnest. “I'm being facetious, of course. He's a little off-put by the whole thing. Something about the human way of doing it being bad enough. I suppose I can't blame him.”

Talk of Dave could turn his stomach, any time but now. But when the whole world was orange and heavy and the tea was warm in his belly, what was there to be sore about? Rose notices the lid of his eyes.

“I'm sorry, you're tired. I'm babbling.” They set their mug on the table. “I admit, I was unnerved.”

He nods, the closest he can get to articulating his understanding. He isn't sure where their nervousness comes from, or their investment. Morbid curiosity in more than part, he's motherfucking sure. But...

“Rose...?”

They perk slightly, alert to his question.

“Are we friends, sister?” And then a pause, licking his lips. “Can I be calling you sister?”

“Yes-” they stop, nod again. “To both. Or, I'd very much like to be friends.”

He could question it, or even advise against it. But not now. What threat is he to anyone now? And morbid curiosity is inoffensive enough. He sinks down into the couch, quickly running out of focus, and they notice with a merciful seizing of his tea mug. “I'll have Tavros bring you some food.”

He nods, dimly, finding himself with a weak smile. _Host to some motherfuckin terrorwigglers. Yeah, sister. Can be taking a step up onto that shit, can be wrangling it._

Tavros appears soon around the foot of the couch, and motherfuck, if the image of him all tall and broad in that firelight wasn't something that made him suddenly weak, weaker now than before. The glow catches in his eyes, wings and hair all the same, and it takes longer to see the bowl of soup offered than it does to still his beatpump.

“Thanks, brother,” he mutters, hearing the softness in his own voice. Tavros smiles, and that puts the ache in him more than anything. This tired, he can't question that smile. He can only avert his eyes and give it back.

The soup is good, filling, matching the heat and comfort of the tea and at the end, it's only the aches of his body that remain. It feels almost good, that heaviness. He's warm. He's not alone... it would be different, maybe, if it was only Kanaya. But with the others...

He remembers the argument held in the kitchen, faintly. “Where's Karkat?”

Tavros takes the finished bowl of soup, looking up at the question. “We uh, had him go to bed, he was exhausted.” There's a benevolent but uncertain twist in the corner of Tavros' mouth, a gentle suspicion. “He really worked himself up, there.”

Gamzee shrugs. “It's how he is to be.”

“Yeah,” Tavros concedes. Then he looks at the content weariness of the troll before him, and a gentle awareness seems to come into Tavros's eyes. “Do you, want me to take you to him?”

He could weep. _Bless you, motherfucker._ “Yeah, Tavros. Would be real nice of you.”

“Gotcha.” There's that same grin, pump-stopping and all, and Tavros stands to help him. “You don't mind, being carried?”

“Not at all, motherfucker.”

The trip was brief but altogether too good, to rest heavy against arms that were glad to support him. His pulse flutters even now in his dim contentment. And when Tavros puts him down, there's something to the way their hands catch and linger– or maybe that was only something to be imagined, all in his confusion. “I'll let you two sleep,” he says, with an understanding look. Gamzee waits until the last of those broad horns disappear down the stairs, and breathes out a sigh, closing his eyes against any remaining discomfort.

He rolls to face his moirail, as much as he can. Karkat's eyes are shut in an expression almost peaceful, nothing like how he'd been downstairs. He reaches out to sort away some tufts of that aggressive black hair, but only that, nearly delirious with exhaustion. From here, he thinks he can see the dim red stains of tears on the pillow. _Oh, brother._

Karkat blinks awake. It's slow, at first, the recognition, but then he stumbles into awareness like he'd been caught in the act, scrubbing the sleep from his eyes and sitting up onto an elbow. “Gamzee–”  
  
“Shhhh,” he starts. His palm meets that warm cheek easy as anything, and Karkat looks back down with eyes sad enough to threaten water, and so he keeps shushing, keeps easing his hand along the soft line of that jaw. “Easy, brother.”

“Gamzee,” Karkat continues, but lays back down onto the slab. They meet eye to eye, close enough for their noses to almost touch, for Karkat's warmth to seep into him like nothing he'd ever felt. “I'm sorry,” he says, like the words weigh the world. Gamzee can see those eyes searching for what else to say, even as they only look into his own. “Kanaya, she– I just...”

“It's alright, brother,” he says, when he's sure Karkat has finished. He sees him swallow, and finally break his gaze as if to consider that moment down on the couch.

“I just couldn't take it. The thought of you going back there.” Karkat looks up, again, meeting their eyes. “I told her she couldn't. I told her she can't use the drones anymore. I'm sorry, but I just can't. I can't let you do that again.” Karkat lifts a hand, hesitantly at first, but after no sign of apprehension it comes to rest against his waist, and soon that entire warm arm rests around his back. It's a blissful, secure circle. “I can't let you get hurt again. I should never have let it happen to begin with. I can't take this.” Red tears well up just without spilling, and there's a tragic sniffle as he raises his sleeve up against his nose.

“Karkat...”

“I'm serious.” He stops, drops his arm back between them, letting it work its way under Gamzee's neck. “I fucked up. I was a shitty leader, and an even worse friend, and a fucking _abysmal_ moirail.”

“It's okay, brother.” He says it like a promise, stroking back that hair as Karkat starts to weep, gently guiding him in to rest on a narrow, lavender shoulder. “Ain't nothing wrong, now.”

“Can you forgive me?” He asks, through the tears. The answer comes easy.

“Course I can.”

The weeping turns to purring, and they lie together, close and warm and immune to anything cold or painful in the world. Even the aches in him seem serene, somehow, and here in his moirail's arms the feelings start to unfold into a strange peace, something he hadn't felt since he was six. That thought alone allows a note of bittersweet to crawl into his heart, but it doesn't compete with the warmth of Karkat's arms. Through it all, a dim, genuine smile still rests on his face. What the hell is this?

 _Don't be questioning it, motherfucker_ , he thinks to himself. _You can be worrying on it in the morning._

Their eyes meet, and hold, and without knowing why Gamzee closes his eyes in anticipation of a kiss that comes almost immediately. It's gentle and chaste at first, light as anything, but soon their lips close along each other soft and easy. Then they part, and if it wasn't what it was it could be something wrong– something too much– but instead it's just all the parts warm and soft of their mouths together, the timid meeting of tongues, gentle kissing that sets them both dumb and shuddering with pale. He strokes his claws lightly over Karkat's shoulders, feeling palms smooth over his own back, or coming up to brace gently against the volume of his hair.

When they finish, Karkat seems stunned with himself, staring on in as much awe as Gamzee stares in comfort. Karkat's breaths come just a little deeper, at the kissing, and he blushes thoroughly. But there seems to be nothing to say.

Well, he knows what else he can do. Gamzee initiates another kiss, feeling it build to the same intimacy, and not even Karkat's shyness holds them back. They stay that way, exchanging softness and warmth in the carefullest, gentlest fashion, kisses growing lighter and lighter as they drain comfort from each other, until there's nothing either of them can do to stay awake.


	15. Fifteen Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pale makeouts in this chapter. ;o)

He wakes up before Karkat, nuzzled soundly down into the warmth of his moirail's sweater. He stays like that for a while as he works to recall the night before. It comes in pieces to his fogged brain; eggs, Rose, Tavros– that's right. His memory lays it all out as clearly as it can, and in enough time, lying here on Karkat's thorax with a dizzying ache in his middle doesn't feel quite so surreal.

He gently scratches claws down into Karkat's sweater as a pale sort of greeting. Karkat gives an incapacitated purr, but remains firmly unconscious. _That's fine. I'll be lettin you rest, brother._

The block is a low purple from the light of an approaching dawn, but not too bright, not yet. He could go back to sleep if he cared to. The aches may have settled into his body like digshrews in their burrows, but everything outside of himself seems to call for more rest. A quiet bed, a dark room, Karkat purring sleepily under his ear...

It should be perfect. Some sort of discomfort pools in the bottom of his head, some kind of melancholy he's left with in the silence. Overexertion had muddled into contentment yesterday, but it was gone now, leaving him with the same thoughts and feelings as always. He needs to move. He gets up, slowly untangling from the arm wrapped over his middle, stopping only to kiss the base of one of Karkat's stubby horns.

His legs and hips complain ferociously as he slips out of bed and pads quietly down the stairs, but it's nothing he can't handle. There in Karkat's living room are their three guests; Rose and Jane lay sprawled asleep on the furniture by the hearth while Kanaya sits at the table, writing into a green book. She looks up when she hears him, and her expression lowers immediately. Had she been expecting Karkat?

“You shouldn't be walking.” She stands, as if to correct him. He takes her advice before she can act it on him, lowering down into the nearest chair with a muted wince. She goes to touch the back of his seat anyway, as if she has to have a part in it.

When she sits back down opposite from him and attends to her book, he can sense her hesitation. This is awkward. For her, at any rate. He'd long since given up on feeling awkward around her; the only alternative would be to crumble to dust altogether, for all the indignities he'd suffered. You can't very well keep crumbling once you've done it a few times, he thinks. Not if you've already done it down to the atom. There just isn't any farther to go.

But he wasn't mad at her for it. Not for that.

She looks up from her work, realizing he doesn't intend to speak. “Tavros went home, but he said he'd be back in the morning.” It isn't _quite_ morning. He suppresses a sleepy yawn, rubbing under one eye with the heel of his palm. Some of the gray paint flakes away; he should really redo it, but he's still so exhausted, so sore...

He knows this kind of ache and this kind of tired, and he doesn't have delirium to get him through right now. Just an exhausting heaviness. She hardly looks worse for wear, if not a bit uncomfortable. He's too tired, even for envy.

“You been up all night?”

She nods.

“What's that like? To never be getting your motherfuckin gandershut done?”

She narrows her eyes as if to say, _small talk?_ He stills his expression, effortlessly. Like hell he's going to follow her script, and anyway, he's honestly curious. He thinks he can feel his pump biscuit give an incorrigible little flutter at the way her pan chews on him. He works up a little resolve, under that stare. _Yeah, sister? Why not small talk?_

Eventually, her face settles. For a weird second, he doesn't know why he feels so unnerved, then he realizes he's being fixed with a look that doesn't go straight through him.

“Karkat spoke to me. I'm sorry about what happened in the hive. I shouldn't have allowed it.”

He should feel glad, but something else is curdling there in his bloodpusher. No, it's not enough to be glad for. “Ain't a hoofbeast left in that barn, sister.”

“I know,” she says. “I don't... know if regret is the word, exactly. But it's not something I'll repeat.”

“I ain't sore to it,” he answers, and he's not. There's a lot of things to be upset about, but he isn't sure how angry he can be at Maryam. Nothing she had done was to hurt him. She'd never delighted in his suffering, or metabolized it into her ego, and at her very worst had been only apathetic. He'd done that much to himself, hadn't he? Would his forgiveness even be a consolation to her, or was it as worthless as everything else? ...He didn't really care if she was sorry, especially not this late. She probably didn't care he wasn't moved by an apology.

It's a sad thought, and not a thing he's eager to wonder on. Her stare holds until there's a sound from across the room, and Rose shifts awake on the couch. In a moment their blonde head appears over the back, messy from sleep and looking unusually candid. Kanaya tries to make herself look disengaged with the clown in front of her.

“Morning,” they sigh, then look to the still-dark windows to complete their thought. “Almost.”

Kanaya stands at once to go greet them, bowing for a chaste kiss. Gamzee looks away respectfully, feeling a little heart-sick and plagued with strange memories.

Rose comes around and smiles at him, sorting their hair with their fingers. He tries to return the expression, with medium success. “Are we feeling better?”

Not technically, but he nods. He's vaguely aware of Kanaya lingering in earshot, while she meddles with the equipment from last night. “Yeah, sister. Just heavy, all over.” And like he'd been hollowed out with a gardening trowel, but he doesn't want to say that out loud and worry them.

“You can have the couch back, if you'd like.” They lean down somewhat, lowering their voice. “She won't tell you outright, but she does want you to be comfortable.”

He wishes he had something to do besides look a little baffled and feel all sortless inside, but he nods, and with their hands at a respectful distance they guide him up and towards the recuperation bench. There's already a blanket there, and he pulls it about his shoulders.

“Rose?” he calls back. They stop. He holds his request in his mouth, for a minute. “Can I be seeing those motherfuckers again?”

After a thoughtful pause, their expression lights in understanding and they move away. “I'll let Kanaya know.”

Rose reappears shortly with the eggs. The muddled spheres are like oversized marbles, cradling their biological treasures in thick, sturdy membranes that remind him of the color of storm clouds under the faint green moon, or the ocean swollen with waves. The sight of them sets an itching impatience he hadn't known he was feeling into an uneasy relief, and he finds he very, very much wants to hold them. He isn't sure he's allowed.

Rose watches silently before they interpret his stare, and finally their brown hands come to ease the eggs out of their basket, hammocking them in their cloth bedding. He gets a little nervous, as they lower the bundle into his arms.

“It's alright, sister, I ain't gotta-”

“I think you're entitled to a _little_ sentiment here,” they assure him, with a subtle wink. He lets all of that finesse go right over him and accepts the eggs with a nod, curling up on the couch where the small things can rest safely on his thorax. The eerie weight of them presses down on his breathing and heartbeat. It's entirely motherfucking bizarre to have known what it was like, to be full of them, and to hold them here now. Burdens without peers. Something to add to a pile of things like it.

He's very careful. They're cool and light in his arms, with residual heat from the lamps fading into his skin off their smooth surfaces. Inside the foggy shells the grubs are coiled tightly, hapless little motherfuckers without so much as ganderbulbs to look through. Somehow he's compelled to say to them, _It's okay, I've got you._ Instead he bundles them a little closer, captivated, and Rose leaves him be with a consoling pat on the shoulder.

Only three. There's no _only_ about a life, but he wonders for a weird, mournful moment if there could have been more.

 _...No use fussin on it,_ he thinks, sorting them carefully in his arms. They hold him down, but he holds them up, and the world holds him up, so it's okay. He lays there with heavy things making a commotion in his thinkpan, while the voices of Kanaya and Rose float out of the kitchen.

Eavesdropping suggests their hush is for the benefit of Jane asleep on the chair, not secrecy, because all they talk about is the normal stuff; the eggs, the technical aspects of survival in their little world, Dirk's ever-ambitious plans for electricity and water. He shuts his eyes and purrs just enough to feel the vibrations up against the weight of the eggs, letting the conversation become white noise over his horns. He might sleep, but he doesn't want them to tumble off his chest.

He's only comfortably sedated when Jane starts to lift from her chair at the foot of the couch, sighing and rubbing her eyes. She takes a moment to groan and stretch out of her grogginess, but when she catches sight of him she too offers a smile. Smiles towards him still aren't many, but at this rate he'll soon be out of fingers to count them on.

She notices the eggs with a grin, but doesn't mention them. “Hi, buster. You're looking better.”

Even if it's a lie, it's a nice one. He settles the protective wrap of his arms about the eggs just so, and braces for a conversation. She yawns again, stretches again, and lets her arms fall back into her lap. “Where's your crab? He was glued to you, last night.”

He suppresses a rumble at the thought of Karkat. “Still sleeping. I ain't wanted to make him get up.”

“That's sweet of you,” Jane says. “And probably a good idea. He was so upset yesterday! I was sure he was going to carry on like that all night.” She twists and rubs some stiffness from her neck, the results of sleeping on a thinly upholstered chair. “...I thought about kicking him out until he calmed down, but then again... that seemed about as likely as me sprouting a pair of horns.”

He can only imagine. The closest Karkat might get to calm at being barred from his own hive– from his own moirail– would be to pass out in the middle of a tantrum. He almost snorts a laugh, but the effort melts quickly in his lungs. “...Tellin at Karkat he can't have somethin, he ain't just gonna hear no. He'll take it meant there's somethin gone motherfuckin sideways all up in his asking.” Or worse, Gamzee thinks, remembering the fight from a few days ago.

Jane nods, almost wincing. “...Granted, I think that would have been awful rude of me. This is his home, after all, and you're his... something. It starts with an _m_?”

“Moirail,” Gamzee answers, savoring the word. It's funny to say it out loud. The M at the start is almost the hum of a purr low in his throat, the rest of the vowels all breath and soft-like on his tongue. He must look a little wistful, because she smiles on at him in an amused sort of way. It only fades into a different look as she speaks.

“Is that... hard?” She offers. He's too stunned to answer, so she carries on. “I know he cares, but I remember a great deal of yelling! There was some sort of commotion outside with Maryam. Hmm.” Her hands settle on her hips, her expression lowering to a thoughtful grimace. “Or I should say, there's always some kind of commotion with Karkat. You have a recovery to get around to, is all. I should just hope he'd give you a chance to breathe.”

He realizes just then that what she's offering with that look is sympathy. If he was any less tired, he might not have forgotten to be incredulous. She's only been here for hours, and still managed to pick out that things don't quite measure up– the five-trolls worth of Karkat's urgency all piled up must make him look so small in comparison. He swallows around a new lump in his throat. It wasn't until he really saw it in somebody else's eyes that it looked so real.

Did Rose see it, too? He wonders, sadly, if two helpings of human sympathy– advocacy– could level the scales between Karkat's _much_ and his nothing. Or if he was an infinitely negative sum that would swallow up any counterweight. Or if there was even a point.

The heart of the problem was getting mighty crystal in front of him now, almost taunting him with itself. Karkat had to get smaller, or he had to get bigger. Maybe both? The very thought is exhausting. But it wasn't _impossible_. Just unthinkable. Well, shit– Unthinkable things happened to him all the time.

Besides. It must be strange to a weird star-person like her, but if ever there was a troll screaming louder for pale, it was Karkat Vantas. “He ain't so bad, sister.”

She scoffs. “He's a nineteen year old boy. That's as bad as they get!” Her tone is only playful, and he smiles. “But I'm glad. Just... don't exert yourself.” _Or let yourself be exerted_ , was the subtle implication. “I'll have a word with him, maybe. As 'the doctor.' I'm warming up to that, you know.”

He has just enough time to give a perplexed nod. Then Rose appears, leaning over the back of the couch. They have a knowing grin. “Are we talking about Karkat? I think I heard the words _great deal of yelling_.”

“I was just saying to Gamzee that a little peace and quiet comes _medically_ recommended!” A thought seems to occur to her suddenly, as her face goes wide in realization. “Oh, no. I'm not meddling in your weird alien thing, am I? I don't mean to be a jerk!”

“You ain't, motherfucker.” Gamzee adds truthfully. Rose nods.

“Let's try to give Gamzee a little credit, shall we. From what I've heard, I politely suspect Karkat of imminent and overwhelming improvement.” They give him an approving look; he shrinks under it, drawing arms around the eggs. _Who, me, sister?_ “But if you need any help, or some time off... well, don't be scared to ask. It takes a village. In this case, literally.”

He nods, clueless. In the aim of _peace and quiet_ , the two of them leave him in a cozy silence in the back of the hive. By now, a silvery, misty morning lights up the windows, and he breathes in at that weird peaceful feeling making its way back between his horns. It's dreamy in an almost unnerving way, like there's something stuffed up between him and reality, taking the corners off things. But he can listen to the women in the front of the house, stare at the wall, hold the eggs, and think. About Karkat, himself, and everything.

He's nearly asleep when there's a knock on the door. Rose stands to get it, and he sits up, carefully letting the bundle of eggs down onto his lap. Tavros comes through the block portal, arms full of some variety of things from his husbandry efforts; milk and cream, likely.

“Hey,” he starts, exchanging glances with the many, many people stuffed into Karkat's living block. “I uh, thought, we could use these for breakfast.”

Jane comes around to unburden his arms from some of the packages, but a single basket remains hanging from his elbow and covered in a square of burlap. Kanaya, apparent commander of the hive in Karkat's stead, is the only one left to come and see. She stops in front of him with a curious look.

“What's that you've got?”

Tavros, looking sheepish, pulls away the cloth from a generous amount of quail eggs. They sit in a speckled pile even he can see from the couch, little brittle doubles of the ones he holds in his arms.

Kanaya pauses. Then _laughs,_ which surprises everyone. The noise is as clear and heavy as a glacier.

“Alright,” she agrees. “That's downright thematic. We could all use a good meal.”  
  
“What, will you have?”

“I don't suppose you brought the bird, too.”

“Sorry,” Tavros replies, looking _somewhat_ unnerved. “I could, uh, summon a rabbit, but that kind of proposes, ethical problems, I think, so. I won't.”

“Agreed. I'll go hunting; do the rest of you think you can manage for a while?”

“Of course,” replies Rose.“Gamzee, do you still have the flour I brought you? I think all of this calls for some celebration.” He nods, feeling guilty that it sits untouched in the cupboard. “Great, we can go all out. Can you give me some advice, Jane? I've only made pancakes once before.”

Soon the scents and bustle of breakfast fill the lower block, rousing an appetite he hadn't known was building down amongst the aches in his middle. He lowers the eggs into their basket, taking a moment to arrange the cloth around them just so, as light as his claws can touch them, making sure their weights don't press to each other. It's so, so strange, to find himself here, delicately arranging eggs. Like the past and future had got heavily disjointed somewhere in the middle.

The atmosphere of the hive is downright sunny, by the time he hears Karkat's footsteps trod down into the kitchen. He looks over just in time to see his moirail rubbing sleep from his oculars while he surveys the mayhem in his commandeered nutrition block. A blank question escapes his muggy affect; “Gamzee...?”

He perks up. “Right here, brother.”

Karkat looks across the room, brightens, and makes a bee-line for the couch. Gamzee rumbles to greet him as he sits by their side, close enough to reach down and smooth palms over each of their cheekbones. Karkat's eyes are sad, and he sighs with the weight of things there's no time or privacy to say. Instead, the regular questions are rapid, almost blurred through his lingering drowsiness. “Are you feeling alright? You're okay?”

He nods into the palms on his face. “Just sore a little.” _More than a motherfucking little._

Karkat nods sympathetically, then appears to get an idea. “Wait here.”

He does. He hears heavy footsteps rushing back up to the second floor, and some vague rummaging under the sounds of the others in the kitchen. Then Karkat comes thumping back down, and soon reappears at his left.

“I made some of these for Sollux. I kept some for you, but– I. Well, here. You can take some, if you want.”

He looks down at Karkat's open hand where two small, white pills sit on his cool gray palm. _Oh._

What would happen, if he took them? Would it just stop hurting? Or would it mug him up inside, pull everything off and away in a nice fuzz? Weird, desperate memories pull up that in the worst moments he'd wanted nothing more than to go sniffer first down into cold, raw slime if it meant feeling even a tiny bit less. And now, thinking about being all buzzed up and warm here, with Karkat to hold him in his purring stupor...

He reaches out.

To close his hand gently around Karkat's, folding those gray fingers shut over the pill.

“I'm alright, brother,” he says. Trying to mean it. Karkat watches, but nods, and quickly pockets the small things. It probably wouldn't even be like that. It probably isn't like that at all.

  
“Alright,” Karkat answers. “It's okay, you don't have to take them. You don't have to do anything, Gamzee. You did good, you can rest now.” With their company in earshot, it's as reasonably close as he can get to breaking down into pale hysterics. Gamzee's pump gives a little flutter as a sigh works out of his thorax.

Breakfast is served at the table in the middle of the block, spotless despite its use the night before. It's almost unnervingly cordial to have five other living persons in the hive and not one of them looking at him like the odd thing set in the corner. He lets himself look around the room towards the others, taking in the light, the faces, the calm, the scent of the food. Breakfast sits easily in his belly, and there's a warmth in the air he doesn't understand. No lightning is about to strike. Nothing's about to hurt him. His skin seems to tingle with it, and there's a weird, buzzing euphoria building in his unreliable feelings. Something is very much _not here_.

It feels a little like he's doing something wrong, sitting here and eating with them, and that's the shadow on his thoughts he can't quite shake. But it's a shadow on the other end of a very bright light.

After breakfast, the guests start gathering their things and head out into the brightening daylight. Tavros and Jane pause to exchange hugs with the people that will accept them; he at first stands at a distance, but when they come to him, all he can do is timidly reciprocate with the arm that doesn't clutch the blanket around his shoulders.

 

-

 

Soon, only Rose and Kanaya remain. Maryam gives a sigh of completion to the whole ordeal, while packing her equipment away into an easy-to-carry duffel. Rose assists, while Karkat hovers awkwardly to the left of where the eggs had been moved to the wall. Out of their basket, they sit in individual containers each equipped with a heating lamp and insular bedding. Rose had called them 'cradles,' a strange word that rolled off his tongue in two easy syllables. Gamzee sips a mug of tea they'd left him with, watching the others work.

“Why are they in separate boxes?” Karkat asks.

“It's a little preemptive,” Kanaya explains, disassembling a scale for easy travel. “But if the grubs hatch and are left unattended, there's a slight threat of cannibalism.”

Karkat loses all the color in his face, at that. Possibly imagining the results of his ectobiology, and some of the more grim implications. “ _Oh_.”

He manages not to find this information horrifying to the point of shock humor, or at least not funny enough to laugh. Even Rose would be a little disturbed, from the look on their face. “I'm suddenly glad humans aren't born with teeth,” they offer.

A thing occurs to him, looking at those boxes and the way Kanaya stuffs things into bags. They seem awfully portable. His pump biscuit gives an ache to join the ones in his core.

“...Are you to be taking them with you, sister?”

He hadn't meant to sound so longing, and Karkat is immediately fixing him with a pale look. Kanaya turns, surprised by the question, and stands to clap dust off her hands. She fidgets before answering, tucking a strand of coal-black hair into place.

“Well, about that.” She quickly re-solidifies, leaning back and folding her arms. “I've been thinking...”

The room pauses. All three of them seem to lean in for the answer. Kanaya frowns, and goes steel again. She looks to Karkat.

“Would you mind keeping the eggs here, and caring for them?”

Gamzee watches the dumb horror come across Karkat's face. “I– _me_?”

“You're perfectly qualified,” she assures, though her gaze ducks. “Maybe even the most qualified. It's really quite simple– Someone would just need to be checking them regularly, doing the things I talked to you about. I could show you how. I'd do it myself, but there are other obligations I can't give up.” She looks between them, from Karkat, to him, and he feels a strange sort of optimism lift up at her stare. “Gamzee could do it, but... not alone. Certainly not without time to recover.”

He can't help but look optimistic. _Oh, please._ But Karkat looks as pale as ever– in the desanguinated sense, not the romantic one– up until his face colors with embarrassment.

“Well–” Karkat stumbles over himself, puffed up with discomfort. “What about the fields? And town meetings? Or if something... _happens_ to them?”

“It's you or someone else, Karkat. It's not me.” She makes that quite plain, before going on to address his others concerns. “I can take a portion of your field shifts, now that I'm not managing our reproductive efforts. It's less work, comparatively,” she answers. “Town meetings are brief enough you could go and come back– but we could just as easily send someone as courier. Between you and Gamzee, they'll be more than accounted for. There's no danger.”

Karkat seems unconvinced. The nervous hair-ruffling is matched by nervous lip-chewing. It'd be a little too unkind to go over and pap him in front of everyone like this, so instead he consoles him from across the table. “She says it ain't hard, brother. You can be doing it.” He tries to let that be his way of asking.

He also looks to Rose for backup, who takes the hint. “You know, I bet Gamzee would like the company.”

That gets to him. Karkat's eyes dart around, his expression lights up, his nervous hands drop, and a noiseless breath escapes out of his throat. “I mean. Yeah. You think so? Well, if it'll really work out.” There's still a pause, while Karkat considers the eggs dubiously. “It's just a week or two, right?”

“About,” Kanaya answers. “Then we'll have to decide what to do about caring for the grubs when they hatch. That's somewhat more involved.” She lifts the duffel, filled to bursting with medical instrumentation, as easily as a pillow. “But it can be done later.”

“Yeah,” Karkat concedes, looking momentarily like _What-Have-I-Gotten-Myself-Into_. When he looks over, Gamzee flashes an encouraging smile, pleased that it melts Karkat's disposition. “...Okay.”

Kanaya lets out a breath that tells him what he already knows; more than she wants Karkat on any one project, she wants him _quarantined_ until the emotional storms blow over.

Karkat had worked himself into a time bomb, and was likely to further approach unbearable, overstressed oblivion if not immediately derailed, defused, and reset. She's not just being practical– she's being downright strategic. Her look, for all its steely resolve, is just short of pleading; _for the love of your incorrigible gods, get him under control._

There's a mixture of pride, amusement, and pity. Like he could fold his hands closed against each hip, stand tall, and say _well, well, it's a good motherfuckin thing I am to be here, ain't it._ He meets her focused look with a placid smile. _I've got the moirail everybody's needing for me to sort out lest he get disastrous up on himself. Ain't that some tables flipways._

Perplexed, but not quite confused, she releases him from her critical stare. “I'll show you the routine and leave you with a chart. You can teach Gamzee later, when they're feeling better.”

He's allowed to go back to the couch while they talk it over. Rose stops him for a good-bye hug, and asks him to tell them when he finishes one of their books. He promises he will. After that, Kanaya's lesson is brief, and soon there's the sounds of fond goodbyes coming from the door and Karkat's audible sigh as the block portal closes with a _thud_. Finally, it's over.

Heavy footsteps find their way back towards the couch, where Karkat falls profoundly into the space beside Gamzee's feet. They watch him deflate with a continuous breath. Across the room, the heating lamps buzz faintly at their low setting, and outside the window the birds chirp in the new daylight. It's the only sound that fills the thick silence of the two of them finally alone, together.

Karkat is the first to break that silence, but only after looking down at his fidgeting hands. Then he moves, and Gamzee pulls up their feet to make room for his approach, for how he slowly wrap arms about them.

He's suddenly so, so tired. Karkat clings to him like a wiggler might hold their favorite stuffed cholerbear, tight and needy. He lets himself go limp in that embrace, put at ease by the firmness of it, before Karkat lifts away to look them in the eye.

“I'm–” he starts, then slows, his eyes tracing Gamzee's face. “Wait. Do you want to take your paint off first?”

 _Oh._ “Yeah, brother. Could be doing it.”

Karkat nods. “Wait right here.”

It's not as if he has anywhere else to run off to, but before he can say so, Karkat is gone to get a basin of water and a clean rag. He privately mourns the missing ingredients of his kit; he isn't sure if there will be mythbrittle here on the new planet, and he hadn't had the energy to look for its spindly towers of gray, crooked blooms. He misses the scent of it, and of the shutterhusk oil, how the two could be lathered together in his hands to clean and soothe his skin from the paint. It was a dry scent, like bread or earth, floral and wooden. The church used to send it to him, before the game, when he was a child. The familiarity, and the ritual of taking the paint on and off with sunset and sunrise– it was like belonging to something, being worth something. He'd run out perigees ago.

The paint pots are similarly low. What will he do when even that much is gone?

There's no use wondering. He takes the rag, dampens it, and smooths nearly all of the paint away in three practiced strokes; one down each temple and cheek to over his mouth, the last over his forehead and nose, brought up to cleanse away the hollow under his brows. Then he takes handfuls of the water, easing it over the stubborn smears that remain, and drys clean.

He really should put the paint back on, while the sun is out. But it's not really the _old_ sun, is it? It probably doesn't count as the eye of god, technically. He's the only one left to care or decide, and that makes his stomach feel empty and hollow despite breakfast.

There's no other subjugglators. There's not even a copy of the old cards, from how his husktop had been wiped empty and left with the cherubs. He's scared to try and remember the scripture himself, knowing there will be gaps, holes punched in all big and aching. He hadn't thought about this in ages, he thinks bitterly. It hadn't mattered. _Mattering_ wouldn't help, hadn't helped. Why did it dare matter _now_? Hadn't he given up already?

His eyes are watering, and he smears a tear away onto his clean face. Karkat is on him before he can start crying in full, and while it doesn't come hard, it still comes, little hiccups that make his shoulders jump. Karkat holds him and hushes without question, and quickly as it had come it's gone, taking his energy with it.

It's not for a moment longer that they settle down together on the couch to cuddle in silence. He can still feel Karkat's unspoken nervousness in the erratic strokes of his thumbs across Gamzee's back. He invites whatever it is to come out with a gentle pat to Karkat's arm and a focused look. Karkat sighs.

“...We never really talked about things,” he starts. “There wasn't time, and I guess I thought I should wait. Not anymore, though.”

He sounds afraid. Gamzee can imagine what it must have been for Karkat to worry through yesterday, but just now it occurs to him there was a chance, at least in Karkat's mind, that they could have died. And more than that, the thought that it could have been something tragic to anyone in the first place. Full of pity, he lifts a hand up to Karkat's full cheek.

“I'm sorry for what I said to you then, brother.”

Karkat's eyes shoot open from their melancholy hang. “Wait, w _hat_? Oh god, Gamzee, no. You were right.” He stops, pulling back from his surprise. “And I was a real ass about how that made me feel.”

He carries on, red eyes darting up and down from his face to his shirt. “I just want to say... “

Karkat stops, hardens his resolve, and picks Gamzee's hands up into his own. This time his expression is firm, his gaze focused. “I've thought about it a lot, and you don't have to be with me, if you don't want to. I know _you_ know that, but I want you to know I know it.” He lets those words exist on their own, for a moment. “I wasn't even thinking about it. And I was an idiot to take you for granted. To think there weren't other people that cared about you, and I was– I _did_ think, secretly, that I was doing you some kind of favor even at my worst. I didn't even realize that I was. That's how bad it got.”

He pauses, chewing on his lip– little red wounds live there, by now. They escape from his teeth in a quiet sigh. “You were right about Terezi, too. I wasn't doing her any favors hanging off of her feelings, either. I never would have lied or been such a jackass if I'd just made peace with her not wanting to be with me from the start. You know? I should have manned up about it sweeps ago. Maybe then I would have been a decent friend to her, at least. Maybe even to you, too.” He makes a face, looking ill. “God, what am I saying. This is embarrassing.”

Gamzee moves their hands up out of Karkat's grip, back against his red face. “I meant it ain't true that you don't love motherfuckers. You do, brother. More than anyone I am to know.” _Maybe that's the problem._ But what a problem to have.

“...Thanks,” he says, with a look that's appreciative, but not proud, and a smile that quickly fades. “But I don't think that's what you were saying. And... it _is_ true, Gamzee. I didn't... I don't know, I was so wrapped up in things that scared me. I can't explain it, but finally I _get_ something.” He hefts his palms like holding that inexplicable thing out between them, or like making a plea. “And the weird thing is? I'm not scared anymore.” His expression seems to hold that liberated feeling in it, though it cools back into a sympathetic calm. “But I am sorry. I'm really, really sorry it all came down on you. After everything you've been through, that must have been horrible. _I_ was horrible.”

He looks on at Karkat in all ways pale and mournful, feeling parts inside himself dangerously close to some kind of purring stupor. This is frightening, to have so many things all crumbling at once, layers and layers of shit in his pan all crawling over each other. He's properly disoriented by it, and babbles genuine things pale and sweet. “I didn't mean to be yelling at you. Didn't want to be. Wish I hadn't, brother.”

Karkat flushes up red again, and looks away. “Oh, come on, it's okay. I get it. I just want you to know that.”

They both stop, a little awkward, a little shy. Karkat fills the gap, nervous but clear. “...Don't get me wrong. I mean. I want you. Still, more than anything. It makes my fucking pan spin.” He shuffles a bit, rubs at each of his arms. “But if you're looking for a chance to bail out of this fucking train wreck, here it is. If I'm not making you happy, then. Don't let me keep you here. I'll _still_ care about you. I'll even still make sure you're not starving or cold or anything like that. You know, like my job is, as your mayor.” Sad and serious, Karkat looks him right in the eye. “What I mean is... You don't deserve to be with people that hurt you, even if it's by mistake.”

The moment holds still and quiet, long enough for his voice to have echoed if they were in a bigger room. It echoes in his pan, anyway, while he watches Karkat's certainty. Something awful is going on in his chest, a feeling too big, like it's gonna tear its way through. All he can do is watch those red eyes.

Eventually, Karkat pulls his hands away. “There. That's all I had to say.”

Left with that, it's hard to speak. Instead, he watches, watches the way Karkat awaits a response like a barkbeast caught with a chewed newsroll, his head hung low on his neck. There's pity in his beatpump, stretching it sore. He breathes out heavy, and wraps his fingers around Karkat's hands and pulls himself in, curling around Karkat's torso and holding there tight. A little stunned, Karkat reciprocates, folding arms there around his narrow back.

“There ain't anybody I pity more than you, brother.”

Karkat doesn't answer, going still with surprise. He carries on, holding a little bit tighter, though it scares him to. “I'm wanting for this. To be pale with you. Please, motherfucker, keep me.”

“Gamzee...” Karkat starts, but doesn't interrupt, trailing off to wrap his arms around them in return. There's an automatic purr threatening in his thorax, and he remembers back to the first time Karkat had encouraged him to make the noise. Wetness comes to his eyes.

“You ain't bad.” He fights back a sniffle, rubs his unpainted cheek down on Karkat's sweater. “You got goodness in you fit for me to envy, and you've got it plenty. Every motherfucker knows.”

Karkat silently rubs his back. Eventually an errant, troubling thought breaks out of Gamzee's pan into the quiet; “...Besides, ain't nothin you could do what to be the worst thing I've been through.”

Karkat goes tense, then draws up a sigh bordering on panicked exasperation. “Goddamnit, Gamzee, I don't want to be _not the worst_ , I want to be the _best_ fucking thing you've been through!” The outburst quickly settles back into an appropriate calm, Karkat looking a tad ashamed of his volume. “Listen... I don't know if this can make up for everything that went on back then, but... When you're around, it's like I can actually _think_. It's like I'm finally where I'm supposed to be.” He stops to look them in the eye. “It's like this all was worth it.”

He stares right back. _Everything that went on back then._ Karkat doesn't know the half of it– can't possibly know the half of it. But thinking about it leaves him yearning all the same, wishing there was anything his pan could do but turn itself inside-outways and shudder. Wishing there were some words left that didn't crumble away from the shit like leaves in a fire. Wishing he was ready for this.

That same feeling of _too big_ is welling up inside of him, and he gives a whine, lowering his head. Something is full to bursting. His watering eyes are fighting to come to tears, and he moves away enough to palm at them, trying to control the quivering in his lips and voice. Karkat sees his discomfort, and tries quickly to console him.

“Sorry,” Karkat offers, his voice gentle. But he's not stupid, and he puts it together quickly enough. “Something's... _wrong_ , isn't it? Not just with us. With before the door, with what happened to you. Something's felt wrong about it from the damn beginning.”

He blinks. What does Karkat mean? It sounds like a deep regret, but that's impossible. He'd almost be angry if it were true...

Karkat shakes his head, moves back in to hold him. “You don't have to talk about it. It can wait. If that's what's best, everything about that horrendous shit can wait _for-fucking-ever._ ” He sighs, pets down Gamzee's hair, and that threatening purr finally erupts into an all-out rattle at the threat of warmth and safety. “It was totally fucking unfair. None of us were ready for any of it. We were _kids_. The only good thing about it is that it's over.”

He doesn't know what to make of that at all. Before he can figure it out, Karkat lifts him away, and slowly– slow enough for him to refuse, though he can't– cups warm palms up against his cheeks, lips moving just short of a _shoosh_. Instead, he speaks a set of shy, earnest, pump-stopping words.

“I'm–“ He stops, flounders, gets back his confidence. “I look at you, and... I'm so absolutely pan-rottingly fucking _grateful_ for you it's _embarrassing_ , Gamzee. You don't know how much it means to me that you're back.” Now even Karkat's eyes are leaking, shiny red beads on the corners of his oculars, and they watch him pull a lip between his teeth. “...I thought we lost you. That I lost you. I thought it was my fault...”

Gamzee's stomach gives a horrible twist. _Then why didn't you come for me, brother?_

It's too late for those thoughts now, especially with Karkat's sad eyes and warm hands so close and so real. His beatpump lurches in pity. The emotional vertigo is too much, and he goes soft and watery all through his insides. “I'm right here, Karkat. I been right here.”

He takes Karkat's hands, wrapping fingers around the warm, thick palms. Something swells up inside, that feeling he'd been so afraid of, brought on by something as simple as _I thought I lost you._ Maybe he still did. Who was he missing? What was left, after all of that? Could anything have survived sweeps of sopor, sweeps more of god?

It's too horrible to think of that six-sweep old and what's left of them. Too horrible, and yet...

Gamzee shudders through a chill in their belly, through the feeling of some awful thing sloughing off of their pan into a revolting heap in the bottom of their think-space, leaving everything bare, with thoughts shriveling off and crawling out of the wreckage like bugs. It's horrible.

It had to be too late. Much too late. It's awful, like being an empty shell fit to crack, like being a brittle thing, a drained wound, like thought-nausea. But once it starts, it doesn't stop. It's a purge, a mental undoing just like all those sweeps ago. _This is wrong. It can't be true._ Every idea is so sharp as to pierce straight into that new, tender center in the middle of them, ringing loud in the middle of their head. _Motherfucker, the worst part of me is how I hate to know the loneliness of an unburdened soul._

A final realization racks through their thorax like a blow, finally knowing what hurts so bad. As convenient as it would be to want to die, they don't. Unquestioningly, ruthlessly, and this time the urge won't go quietly, it won't be convinced of its own uselessness or quit in the face of all of the suffering to come. It fights out of them like lightning. It won't be denied. They don't want to die. They want to _live_.

They fall down into Karkat's thorax. It feels horrible to cry, but they do it anyway, as heavily as their lungs care to. Arms come about them quickly, holding them down tight. They choke out their admission, clinging to Karkat's sweater, in a strained and babbling voice. “I don't want to die, brother. I don't...”

“You won't, you won't.” Karkat promises, frantic and confused. It must look spontaneous, on his end. The words come out soft as a whisper, but they sound like cool, gray iron, and feel like those sturdy arms wrapped around their back. “I'll protect you. I promise.”

Karkat eases them down towards the couch, until they lie facing each other. Gamzee covers their unpainted face in their hands while they sob, tucking down into the space created by Karkat's heavy body and the wall of the couch. Somewhere small, safe, hot with crying. When they open their eyes, it's like looking out of themselves for the first time, and they watch their own palms in a horrifying wonder. They can feel themselves in their own limbs, looking out of their own head. Alone and whole, in a whole body that fits tangibly around them. They shiver.

There's fear. They're not ready for this. Like the whole universe could come down and crush them again.

In the end, all they do is cry, and Karkat lets a sizable tear stain gather on one of his shoulders. At first the tears are in bitter confusion, but eventually it fades into a kind of hysterical relief. Physically, emotionally and mentally hollowed, the heightened emotional state can't be maintained for long, anymore than their weakened body can endure the racking sobs. They ease down into a trembling purr while Karkat holds them tight. He rocks them both, gently. It's not better, how they feel. But different. Like the beach with the tide pulled off of it, all the driftwood reaching up from the sand like bony fingers, picked clean by carrion bugs.

“Is there anything I can do?”

Gamzee thinks about that, for a moment. It's hard to think about anything; the last few days and the last few hours hadn't left them with much. There's only so many things they can feel at once, and their heart is topped off, for now. So tired, so warm, so _close_ to Karkat... there's only one thing they could think to want.

“Kiss me.”

Karkat seems surprised, but willing. After a pause, he lowers carefully down to peck against Gamzee's mouth, and then holds a gentle kiss to their lips. But then he pulls back, looking on with those warm red eyes in an eager sort of way, awaiting approval. _Oh..._

They hesitate, before they ask. “Brother... like last night.”

That makes Karkat's eyes go pleasingly wide, and he blushes. They can feel their own cheeks going purple, but they don't care a bit, especially not as Karkat nods and leans back in.

At first it's like before, chaste and simple. But then they tangle closer. Karkat's mouth parts against their own, and they're already trembling with silent purrs by the time there's that warm tongue daring softly into their mouth. They don't have the momentum of last night, so it takes a while to get comfortable with each other, finding a way that's slow, pale, all tongues and lips and everything that's ever been good in the whole motherfucking universe, Gamzee thinks. Their pan fuzzes into calm pale nothing, a blissful reprieve. It leaves them breathless. It lets them go blissfully thoughtless for a while, lets the dissonance quiet down for a bit.

Karkat rolls until propped above them, elbows placed to either side of Gamzee's narrow shoulders. The way he kisses now is filled with his usual urgency, but as best they can Gamzee smooths palms down against his shoulders, purrs and kisses back to satisfy all of that hot energy. They purr, dizzy and stupefied. This is _good_.

Just as they're starting to daydream about Karkat kissing them like this for a _whole week_ , there's a knock on the door.

Karkat pulls away abruptly, visibly red and alarmed. He faces the door, taking in a stabilizing breath. “Who the _fuck_ is that?”

Gamzee reaches up to cup palms against his cheeks again, trying to soothe him back down. Karkat looks surprised, catches his own inappropriate fervor, and nods in a sigh. “I know, I know...”

Gamzee smiles knowingly, withdrawing their hands. There's a moment left of Karkat blustering and adjusting himself presentable, then he lifts from the couch to go answer their visitor. Content even through their melancholy, Gamzee turns to their side on the couch and lets themselves go relax and limp, despite their mental chaos. _A whole week_. Maybe more.

–

 _A whole week_ , thinks Karkat. His pump is going a mile a minute, thrilled and dizzy. He's trying desperately to think of all of the books he'd read where moirails had kissed like that, can't come up with many, and with a sinking feeling fears that one of them might have gone into the alchemizer. _Shit._ How was he supposed to know how relevant that caegar-store trash was going be? More importantly, was he supposed to kiss Gamzee like that? Was he supposed to _like_ it? Because he definitely liked it.

And that was only the most recent problem– he lets his eyes dart to the eggs as he walks by, while smoothing back his hair. No, forget it. One thing at a time. Someone was at his door; he could start there and work his way up.

When he opens it, he's half-hoping that _there is a god_ , and _she doesn't hate him_ , and it might just be one of the guests from last night returning to pick up something they'd forgot. No such luck. Dave Fucking Strider stands just outside of his block portal, and promptly hands him something. “Speedy delivery.”

He glowers, and launches into his rebuttal; “Damnit Dave, do you have any idea what's been going on last night? I am fresh the fuck out of hospitality at-this-moment, so unless someone's dying or on fire, I don't want to hear about it. Kindly fuck off until at _least_ tomorrow.”

“Harsh,” is all he says. Unconvinced, Karkat takes the items all the same. There's the cancer pendant on its long silver chain that he'd given to Terezi, and a jewel CD case with a crudely drawn, indecipherable label.

“Rose caught me on the way up here, gave me the skinny on eggs and whatever. Congratulations on your species not dying out.” Dave does chance a look further into the hive, but not a very ambitious one. Karkat guesses his interest in alien eggs rests somewhere in the negative, from the sudden uneasy look to his face. Eager to change the subject, he points to the items Karkat holds. “Terezi wanted me to hand you that, obviously. But _that's_ from me,” he concludes, referring to the disc.

“Yeah, about that. What the fuck _is_ this, Dave?” He hefts the case up and down in one hand, like a gesturing mobster. “Is this a joke? I never charge my damn husktop, you know that. This shit is practically useless to me. It won't even make a good coaster! I don't even _use_ coasters!” He realizes, suddenly, that he should probably start using coasters.

Dave adjusts his shades. “I thought we were _friends_ , man. Listen, I know this stuff is a big deal to you, so I wanted to show my support for my buddy making up with his clown pal in the only way I know how; a list of thematic jams to groove to. How could you trample a cool dude's friendship grooves like that? Fucking audacious, dude.”

He looks down at the thing, incredulous. “T _hat's_ what this is for? I thought humans sent _flowers,_ or something.”

“No, man, you're thinking of toasters. Home appliances in general. Nobody gets married without at least five blenders to show for it, it's like a rule.”

“Stop lying to me about Earth culture!” He squawks, volume once again inappropriate. He sighs after, stopping to pinch the bridge of his nose. “...Dave, any other day of the sweep I'd invite you in to help me work up a generous froth of rage-spittle. I mean that from the most destitute, scum-coated gutters of my shriveled pump-biscuit.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“But right now, I need to be left alone. With my moirail. Who I am about to pap furiously.” He looks up with intent, hoping for Dave to take the hint. Well, not so much of a hint as a fucking billboard, but with Strider, he can never tell.

To Karkat's infinite relief, he nods. “You don't have to spell it out for me. Good as gone.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” he insists, moving to grip the door. But he doesn't close it until Dave nods goodbye and departs with a quick wave and a smile. A little embarrassed, both by the earnestness of the gift and the residual agitated flush on his face, Karkat shuts the door and sighs at the sweet bliss of privacy.

In the back of the room, Gamzee is waiting. His pump flutters a little at that thought. What he'd said, what he'd _needed_ to say to them seemed to go over, and all his worst fears didn't come to pass. He had a moirail. He had someone to go to, someone who inexplicably wanted him out of all the things in the big new universe. Before he turns around, he savors a little of that pan-fizzling anticipation.

When he gets back to the couch, they're there to look up at him in a sweet way. Wordless, he settles himself at their side, leaning down to give a sigh into their collar.

Gamzee purrs politely, squirming a bit to find a comfortable position to be nuzzled from. Eventually they relax, and look back up at him with a weary, distant sort of pleasure. “Where were we at, brother?”

“Uh.” He pauses on the memory. “Something like...”

They were _kissing_. No, okay, that was putting it lightly. They were full on making out, was what, and he should maybe tell them no– at least until he can find those damn novels, and make sure he hadn't completely imagined all examples of this happening in _appropriate_ allegiances out of desperation for any excuse to carry on.

But damnit, if he was that desperate for excuses...

 _Oh, what the hell._ Appropriate be damned. He summons his nerve, and dives in.

 

–-

 

Terezi shuts her book around a dark teal ribbon, the flavor like salt water in her mouth before it hides under the toasted-cream of the parchment. The binding itself is like chewing on leather, held this close under her nose, so she quickly moves the thing to the candy-store aroma of the bookshelves littered with tomes of nearly every muted hue.

There was a dull cinnamon-apple there, a forest green here, and more. But she was done with them, for now. The moment she'd been dreading had arrived; there was nothing more to study or pour over. She'd come as close to her decision as research and discovery would let her. Now there was only the question of what she would do with her options, and there were no more answers in these books.

She sighs, and grabs her cane from where she'd left it propped to one of the library's tables. Time for a walk.

Beyond the forest where Rose had built their hose, there's a massive river following the town's south and east border. It cuts through the green lowlands to the valley at the foot of the northern mountains, and goes somewhere even beyond that, though no one has seen where just yet.

Terezi makes her way through the woods, towards the water. She sometimes comes here to think, to breathe in the way the sun sparkles across the river's surface. It's quite big– almost too far across to swim, and much deeper than she is tall. Big enough to make other things feel small, which makes it so appealing. She reaches the river before long, and starts her walk down its pebbled bank. To her right, a sharp hill of eroded dirt lifts out of the river bed and begins the woods. On this side of the valley, it's all younger trees and canopies sparse enough for sunlight to dapple through them. More importantly, it blocks out any possible whiff of the town or fields on the horizon, so for a moment, she can be truly alone.

Catastrophe is unlikely, if she goes through with her plan. She has to be ready for it anyway. People had surprised her negatively before, sure. More than once. The problem there wasn't an inability to imagine the worst outcome; it was being ready for it.

She huffs out a breath, feeling herself getting a little melodramatic. No, that wasn't quite right. Some things you can't be ready for, anyway– she'd learned that, hadn't she?– and the things she's afraid of have very little to do with this. She's _deflecting_ , that's what she's doing. It wouldn't surprise her if this was all just some big distraction from working on her real issues, but it was worth doing anyway. Besides, this isn't that big of a deal. She just hopes everyone else will see it that way.

She doesn't expect to smell someone down past the river's next curve, sitting on the bank and tossing stones across the water where they skip merrily. Tavros looks over his shoulder once he notices her, and bows his head to ruffle his hair in a bashful sort of surprise. “Uh, hey.”

“Hey,” she pipes back. Her train of thought is screeching to a halt, and letting all the passengers off.

Her stomach plummets a little in guilt. She hasn't thought of him much, after going through the door. Or much before that. A little evil thing in her head could try to degrade her for being absorbed in her own misery, but Tavros wouldn't feel that way about it, not in his seemingly infinite graces. He's always been so weirdly resilient, mature beyond reason. Maybe he would understand...

Despite the depth of her thoughts, the conversation begins casually. Tavros looks back over the river, his wings giving a flutter that catches light in her nose. “I didn't know, anybody else ever came out here.”

“Me neither,” she offers, coming to stand next to him. The river waits out there before them, glinting with the light of the noon sun. “I come here to think sometimes. Mind if I hang out?”

“Not, really. Uh, by which I mean, yeah, you can.”

That's invitation enough. She sits down next to his feet in the bank's sandy dirt, and in a moment or so, Tavros joins her, wincing and bracing a palm to his sacrum.

She tenses in sympathy. “Legs feeling okay?”

“Yeah. It's not so bad, most of the time. I can get enough walking and lifting in per day, to do the important stuff, and also flying, covers the long distances, so...” He sighs as if to relish his own corporeality, and brings his arms back to rest in his lap. They're big, thick shapes, at least twice as big across as her own. “As long as I do the exercises, it's okay. It might, get worse as I age, but. That's not so bad. This works, for me.”

She nods. She knows chronic pain limits his mobility per day, and he still has use for his chair in his own hive. The game had knit him together again in some strange way, though any details beyond that are vague to her. Those things don't seem to be important. He seems happy, and doesn't discuss it much further, so she assumes he must be content. What she can't assume is that it's like her eyes. Or unlike her eyes.

Nevermind that. There's got to be something more normal to talk about.

She thinks of it; “Dave me invited me to your party. Is he doing it for your wriggling day?”

“Oh. Um, probably. I don't know, he hasn't told me anything about it.”

She twists up her mouth. “Why wouldn't he tell you about your own party? Humans are weird.”

“Yeah, that's definitely, what they are.” Tavros's nervousness is thick in her nose before he speaks, so she's not terribly surprised at the question when it comes. “Uh. I'd love, to have you there, but. You won't bring Vriska, right?”

Her chest gets a hollow feeling. To stable herself, she breathes in the span and breadth of the big cool river.

“She might bring herself, if she finds out.” Terezi realizes. _God, I hope not._ “But no, I won't. I wouldn't.”

And then she has a less charitable thought, something that comes out of her earlier musings sounding unintentionally bitter. “But you're having Gamzee there, right?”

Tavros goes a little rigid. She corrects the implications right away. “No, I'm sorry. That's not fair.” If it had sounded so earnest, it might as well have been– it _might_ have been, just a little. “It's not really... like that, anyway. I was just curious.”

“He asked me, so, he'll be there.” Tavros answers. “I don't really know much about, what went on or anything, so I won't claim to, uh, understand whatever it is that you feel, or, argue with it. Not that I would, even if I did know what it was.” He lifts a hand to ruffle his hair, smooths it back, and sighs. “I could, tell him to stay home.”

She shakes her head. “No, let him come. But thanks.”

So much for being alone with her thoughts, or normal conversation. With a puff of breath and too many thoughts buzzing around in her head, she lays back onto the bank in defeat, filling her nose with the scent of the billowing white clouds. From this view, all she can smell are their dusty gray underbellies, floating through the candy-blue sky.

She thinks of another question. “What's he like?”

“Who?”

“Gamzee.” Terezi mutters. “There's something I'm wondering. Have you been talking to him lately?”

There's a noise of him rolling his shoulders, palming against the back of his neck, fluttering his wings in thought. “Uh, yeah, pretty often, actually.”

“And?”

Tavros seems to know already that he's not being interrogated as some kind of traitor. Not that he would owe her anything, or ever claimed to. “He's kinda sad, mostly. And quiet. He won't talk about, anything, in the game. Not that I'm saying, that I asked, I just noticed, it's a subject that hasn't ever, come up. He's how I remember him, I guess. I don't know, if that helps, what you're wondering about.”

She hums in thought, taking in another breath of the puffy clouds. _Find the shapes_...

“Oh, and, this is probably the first thing, I was supposed to say, but he had the eggs, last night.”

She perks up. Now _that's_ interesting, and she's hearing it long before the town meeting tonight, when it would be public knowledge. It's not inching her anywhere towards her goal, but it's something. “Oh? How did that go?”

Tavros turns around to face her better, settling into a conversation. She takes a moment to notice how _big_ he's gotten. She can almost remember when they were the same size, on a different planet, playing games together. “There were three eggs, and, he's okay. Kanaya wanted to try again, but... maybe, I don't think, I should be talking about that part, actually.”

Still lying on her back, she crosses her arms petulantly. “Aw, c'mon. I want the scoop!”

He grins. She's glad he finds it endearing. “Ha, uh, alright, but, you didn't hear this from me, or anything. Karkat told her, she couldn't run the project anymore.”

“Why would he do that?”

Tavros shrugs. Then rescinds it with a thoughtful frown. “Well, um, because, it hurts Gamzee, when they do it. A lot. But, that's all I know. Honest.”

“Alright. I'll get the rest from miss minty-fresh herself.” It would be a good excuse to come over again, anyway. And the eggs– she'd been distracted enough to never think about those, but suddenly, it starts making sense. But only in the most abstract of ways, in her back brain, where ideas float together like clouds until they become something recognizable. She'll put it away for later.

She sits up, but not to leave. The river is right where she left it, fresh and clean in her nose and enough to clear out other scents, even the one of the troll next to her. It comes to her finally that Vriska's waterfall must find its way down into this big thing, somewhere. That doesn't bother her as much as it might.

Tavros fidgets with the hem of his jeans. “Do you do, a lot of thinking, lately?”

She snorts. “Is that you asking me to leave?”

“Ha, um, no. I was just, wondering, how you were doing.”

 _Everyone keeps asking that._ Is she making it too obvious or something? She meets his grin with a weary smirk of her own. “I'm fine,” she says, mostly meaning it. She can't tell what he's thinking, but she can certainly make a few guesses. “And you're alright?”

He nods, looking nearly surprised by her concern. “Oh, yeah. Most days, are really good.”

That's good. But it would be redundant to say so.

She knows why he's asking. He might be the one person she can't pretend to know Vriska better than, the one person who's advice she'd have to listen to– _damn_. Was that the reason she'd avoided him, all this time? Her stomach sours to the thought, and she pulls up her knees so her shoes fit flat to the dirt of the shore, and her arms can link about her calves. The river is silent and reflective, but maybe that's not what she'd really needed.

She's been at war with herself for a long time, outmaneuvering, sabotaging. It was a good way to refine the edges of your thinkpan and a bad way to be happy, maybe. She can feel her thoughts starting to chase each other around like grinfiends, so she stops, gripping her wrists in each prong, and tries to ask something pertinent. Might as well, with the chance she'd been given.

“Tavros?”

He looks up.

“What do you do on the ones that aren't really good?”

At that, he looks away from the water, drawing out of some line of thought. He takes his time to answer, and she can feel his stare boring into her side. “I don't do anything, Terezi.”

That's not an answer she really likes, but she can't argue with how at peace he seems. She slows her breathing and stills her tongue, so that the word goes into a dim blur. He matches her thoughtful quiet for a moment, but not for much longer.

He carried on, seeming to know why she asks. “I get dreams, sometimes. Falling. The sound– when I hit the earth. It makes it hard, the next day. All you want to do, is sleep.”

Her stomach twists up. Is this what she's been scared of? She remembers those first days when the world was black and her lusus' voice was hardly a whisper in her mind, staring dully into the nothing between her and the walls of her recuperacoon. And the crying. She remembers that, too.

Vriska had pushed them both, in a way. She was still falling. That was all. She might fall forever, if she doesn't do something.

She's being too quiet. She sits up a bit straighter, turning towards him out of politeness. “Do you?”

“Yeah. But then later, I get up.” There's a confidence to his simple speech and lax posture she admires, even envies. “It's not, uh, hard, or complicated, or anything. It's just how it is. Sometimes it's not fair, and you can either go on, or quit, and, uh, that's all you can do. And actually, it's, uh. It's enough, just to have the good days.” He watches her response, and folds his arms over his wide thorax. She can tell from the atmosphere that the gesture is bashful, not coy. “I'm not sad, or miserable, so you don't have to, look like you bit into worm, or something.”

She smiles. “Yeah, I know. Sorry.”

This isn't how she imagined this going. So few conversation are, lately, and she sighs, scrubbing away her wet eyes and trying to let the feelings pass. Tavros's broad hand patting against her back surprises her, and though her nose threatens to run she can make out the fuzzy qualities of his sympathetic expression when she breathes in.

“Thanks.” She hums a pitiful little groan out, building her resolve. Alright, here goes. “...Can I tell you a secret? Just to get your opinion?”

Tavros nods, with gustable interest. “On what?”

That's permission enough. “A theory I have.” She stops, holding that possibility in her mouth for a while, tasting the liberating sensibility of it against her teeth until she's bold enough to declare it. Well, _now_ if _ever_.

“I think that Gamzee might be innocent.”

He doesn't talk, but she can taste his meager surprise. Did he already suspect that? A relief, maybe. She knows they used to be friends, or at least friendly.

So she continues. “The signs are there, you know. I've been studying old law books, and it's about as close to textbook as you can get.” She can almost taste the words in front of her, listing the common symptoms. “Dramatic shifts in personality or values, withdrawing from normally enjoyed company and hobbies. Unpredictable, contradictory behavior or difficult speech. Loss of regular communication.” She makes a face against her own evidence, aware of the obvious problem. “No one's ever proven a case of mind control before. It's definitively unprovable– that's the tricky part.”

It wouldn't have been advantageous in the slightest for the courts to prosecute one of the more subtle tools of imperial manipulation, whether it was of the blatant cerulean or insidious purple variety. Or to leave it as a plausible defense for ne'er-do-wells, rebels or dissenters. With so many players on the field, Gamzee might have been subjected to both. Or none.

Tavros, eternally open-minded, is listening thoughtfully. “Do you really think so?”

“I think...” She trails off. “I think _maybe_ , Tavros. Just maybe. I'm allowed to think that, right? I'm not being stupid?”

He shakes his head, swaying his massive horns in blurry yellow shapes. “Who told you you're being stupid?”

“Vriska. In a way.” She drops her hands from her eyes, remembering the old conversation, and imagining hypothetical new ones. No, Vriska wouldn't agree with this at all. It wasn't something she could use. “She wouldn't get it, that I need to do this. She eats the weak– it's all she knows how to do.”

That's a little too close to home. She goes quiet, feeling her tongue stone up in her mouth. Tavros goes likewise still, thinking of old things. Old memories.

She can't take it any more. “I'm sorry.”

“What?”

She stops. Pauses. For what? For what, indeed. For not knowing what to do back then. For not stopping her. For wanting her more than hating what she's done. For everything. For taking so long to even acknowledge this. What about saying so made her so _afraid_?

“...About everything. About when we were kids, and what happened.” She feels herself pulling a little smaller, letting her blind eyes trace the darkness. “I was really scared you were going to hate me, for...” She stops, putting a palm up against her temple. _Oh, shit._ Is this how Karkat felt? That's an embarrassing thought.

Tavros shakes his head again. “It's, okay. Really. I felt bad for her too, some times...” That's like a kick in the gut. _Oh, god, he sees I'm all roped up in her web and he wriggled out of it and– ugh, no, no, no. Don't cry in front of him, for hell's sake!_

 _But it's true_ , says another voice. _She hurt him worse than she ever hurt you. And here you are daring to be pump-broken!_ She steels herself, and talks at it right back. _No, he doesn't blame me. You're the only one who's angry, and I'll deal with you later. He knows what it's like. And I'm not letting her get away with it anymore._

“It just...” She stops, chews on her lip. “It really sucks, Tavros. I feel like I must be a pretty awful person to want her around, after what she did. To have let it gone on that long.” Which makes her admission come full-circle; “That's why I want to help someone, for once. Anyone. Even him.”

His expression is so strongly in sympathetic disapproval that she can taste it without trying, it sits heavy and earthy in her nose. “It's, okay. It wasn't, your responsibility, to stop her.” He sighs, pauses in search of words. “It's not like, guilt, is going to make it better. If you want, to be her friend, or not be her friend, that's not really a thing, that I care about. All I care about, is that, she doesn't hurt anybody.”

“Me too,” she says.

He nods. “...Um, have you told, anyone else, about your idea?”

She lets out an _oof_ , lifting her head to take a deep breath of the sky. “Can you imagine if I _did_?” She can almost taste their weird blustering. “You know, the worst thing about this– Karkat and Vriska, I mean. Nothing they've done has helped. All they've done with Gamzee is try to leverage me.” she huffs, finding the clarity as recent as the words passing through her teeth.

It wouldn't be so bad if she wasn't having to relive it all to everyone else's moral satisfaction. If people weren't leering over it for an excuse to do what they already might have. Suddenly angry, she wants to cut it out of their opportunistic sympathy and feed it to them. And everything Tavros had said was true; this self-pity wasn't helping, and it wasn't a compliment to victims that weren't around to see it. It was self-destruction. It was martyring herself for someone else's mistakes. So maybe this was stupid, maybe it was wrong. She could either live immobile with doubts, live with no doubts, or live in spite of them.

She hardens herself. “If they're going to drag me around by my feelings, I might as well make the damn things too heavy to lift. Right?”

He nods again. She feels a sick sort of lightness making itself a neighbor to all of her shame. “So what's, your plan?”

She whistles out a sigh. Big question. “...I'm working on that part.”

He seems at peace with her indecision. She watches the river, and unfolds her arms to pick up her cane from the dirt. “Do you think it's possible for things to work out okay? Even after so many terrible things happened?”

He pauses in thought, trapping a gray lip under a white fang. “Maybe. But, that doesn't mean, it's your job... Maybe sometimes, the best thing you can do, is just move on. Even if it's not, okay.”

Her heart sinks. “That's sad, Tavros.”

“Yeah. But, there's things waiting for you, when you do.”

Well, that's all she can stand to learn about herself in one afternoon, she thinks.

She stands up from the bank, settling the cherry-cream pole of the cane into the grip of both her palms. “Well, they have to wait a bit longer. Thanks for listening.”

He stands up with her, towering more than a little at his full height. He hesitates for a bit, but then comes close in a hug she doesn't expect, and goes a little stiff in. But the mass of him is incredibly reassuring, so in a moment she sighs, relaxes, and leans her forehead against his sternum. The river babbles in her ears.

“Take care, of yourself,” he urges.

“I will,” she says. “You too.”

That's all there is to say. They part ways, and she heads back up from the river towards town, while he goes towards the mountains and stables in the north. She's been putting off the future for too long, too long. It was time to get moving.


	16. M.E.T.O.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some creepy dreams in this shorter chapter, but mostly just indulgent pale ladycrushes.

She's in her living room, the one in the new world. Scalemates pile in the corners, and gossamer curtains sway from the windows in a light breeze. Outside, there's vividly magenta Alternian foliage, and the scent of ash and smoke in the air. There's a meteor falling somewhere, a world ending. Somehow that isn't the oddest thing. The oddest thing is how the world flickers when she shuts her eyes.

There's a knock on her door. When she opens it, Vriska stands there, clutching a severed head by its wooly hair. She feels her own wail of despair die in her chest, watching Gamzee's eyes trace the floor. Vriska's grin seems never to stop, in either direction. “Look what I did for you!”

She drops him, where it falls in a growing puddle of vivid purple. “See, now you _have_ to let me stay.”

In the dream, it's true. Vriska comes up and grabs her by each wrist and grins and grins and grins, till the glare of it burns her sight black.

She blinks awake, breathing in the darkness of the world until it goes sharp again in her nose. She can still feel the pounding of her beatpump and the sick horror in her thorax by the time the fading daylight is clear on her tastebuds, rolling to sit up from the bed. _Not real, not real_.

All the same, she takes herself into her living block and gives a cautionary whiff. There's no purple puddles of blood anywhere in her whole hive, and that's reassuring. She clutches a fist shut and presses it against her traitorous sternum, feeling that stupid little pump biscuit go on and on in its panic. _Come on. Come on, we're_ _ **fine**_ _._ A deep breath, in, and out, with the world swirling apart around her through her respiration. _Everything's fine. Just a dream._

She frowns at herself, into the blackness. _And what do you think dreams are, wise-gal?_

Before she knows it, she's pacing, circling her cluttered livingblock table like a lurkfowl. Vriska's offer at the waterfall was completely genuine. Completely plausible. Was that what was scaring her, that Vriska would take this all away? And if so, what could she do? Warn Karkat? Of _what?_ Possibilities swirl around in her head and collide into little bursts of disastrous outcome, all of them pointing to some looming horizon. She wants coffee. They don't have any coffee.

It takes a little longer than noticing the groove she's put in the rug to decide she should shake off the grog, get her cane, and head to the storage barn early. This is what she gets for taking naps while trying to go diurnal, she decides.

Lost in thought, her walk gets her there just as the earliest members begin to arrive. She has her share of space near the front of the rows of seating, where she can breathe in for any sign of cerulean-blueberry disdain floating in from the doorways. There's no trace of it. Vriska must be laying low since their encounter in the library, and she can't say she's disappointed. But in some way it might be easier to have a lock on her.

_You're supposed to be getting away from her, Terezi. Let somebody else handle it._

That could be putting someone else in Vriska's way, she thinks.

_That's exactly what she wants, to rope you in by endangering others, then making it your fault. Always your fault. It's a trap._

But she really, really doesn't want a severed clown head. And if it has to be done by anyone, she'd rather it be her. She'd rather nobody else take this away from her, but the possibility of Vriska doing _just that_ the moment she figures out it's stopped being a loose board to pry at, feels...

This really, really sucks to think about.

 _If you know what someone is going to do, do you have an obligation to stop them?_ She'd tested a theory on that before, but thinking about it now made her want to roll over and die. She didn't want a severed spider head, either. Even after everything, she can't bring herself to want to hurt her. Not even a little.

Karkat is similarly absent, another small mercy. She sighs out as the room continues to fill without sign of either of them, rubbing at her temples and pinching the bases of her horns against a threatening ache. Maybe she's just being paranoid. She can only hope.

The community focuses within the storage barn, its members each in their usual seating. The humans seem to prefer front and left, with the trolls petering back around them and across the aisle. Terezi's habit spot is second row on the right, sometimes joined by Jane or Nepeta, and almost always with Vriska in the aisle spot behind her left shoulder, as if unintentionally. She holds the empty scents of that spot on her brain as the meeting begins.

News exchanges from group to group. The rat problem has been properly recovered from. Groundbreaking discoveries in general alchemization were supplying them with small quantities of compositionally specific objects. Agricultural efforts holding steady, construction efforts on schedule, Dirk's plans for utilities ever solidifying. Without Karkat, the energy in the room is focused but sleepy and proceeds through the business without a single burst of hyperbole. It's very nearly boring. She lets the others go to work while her pan chews silently into its own meat.

Kanaya goes last, standing at the podium stern and glowless. Terezi comes out of her own pondering to hear the news, because she knows what's coming.

“So,” Kanaya begins, looking nearly flustered. _Why?_ “...We had our first results yesterday.”

There's a hum in the pews, because the news _could_ have been _whoops, they're all dead!_ It still could be, as far as the other patrons know. “Three eggs we're betting will be viable, within the correct weight ranges and without deformity. We expect our first hatching within two weeks, and then nine to twelve perigees before pupation.”

She's surprised to hear some sort of congratulatory whooping from the crowd of humans near the front, Roxy and Jade leading the noises. Humans are bizarre, she decides, and not for the first time. When the spattering of applause fades to the uncertain shifting and thoughtful silence of the trolls, Kanaya clears her throat, plainly decentered by the open enthusiasm.

“I'd like to formally recognize the assistance of Jane, Rose and Tavros. And Karkat, who is not present, for letting us make a mess of his living block.”

Is that a joke? It takes the edge off of everyone's hanging bafflement, at least, and the trolls chatter softly. Terezi sniffs out Rose in the crowd, who seems calmly pleased with the whole thing. Feferi's hand lifts up over the field of fuzzy heads. “What colors?”

She didn't use caste, Terezi notes. She can catch a whiff of Sollux's relief, just barely.

“Two Maroon, one Indigo,” answers Kanaya. _Well, that solves one problem_. If it was a grub within purple she would have said so, and that would come with a whole slew of other issues. All grubs from the warmer end of the spectrum may have been easier, but it wasn't as if this was completely random.

Privately, she starts to wonder who made the genetic donations beyond their host, and quickly decides that line of thought is planted firmly within the Venn diagram of “not her business” and “revolting to consider.” Behind the podium, Maryam continues.

“They'll be staying at Karkat's, under temporary quarantine. Brooding caverns are typically sterile by virtue of the Mother Grub and her attending drones, so their immune systems...” she quickly gathers she's loosing the crowd to biological minutia, so she drops the subject smoothly. “I'll let you know when they can be visited.”

“Troll babies...” Muses Jade, aloud. “They must be so weird! What are they like?”

“You'll have to see for yourself. Later.” Kanaya gathers herself, seemingly eager to escape. “That's all.”

Just a tad fiendish, Terezi raises her question just as Kanaya is making her retreat. “What about Gamzee?”

The room hums in morbid curiosity. Kanaya pauses, shares a look across the hive, and gravitates a step back towards the podium.

“Gamzee is completely fine.” She stops, bites her lip, and hesitates a moment longer by the stand before she speaks again; “Also. Karkat-canceled-the-project-indefinitely, good night.”

There's just enough bleary confusion among those who might be so crude as to _ask_ for Kanaya to escape down to the side and towards the door. Meeting adjourned, Terezi thinks, lifting herself from her chair to follow. All that time yesterday and she hadn't even brought Kanaya into her calculations; shame on her. _You were right, you'd be a shitty moirail._

She stomachs that sentiment, barely. Instead she grabs her cane and makes her way outside of the storage hive into the nice cool evening, catching Kanaya hesitating outside of the road. Immediately, Maryam turns to her, looking relieved.

“Terezi-”

“Hey,” she says, interrupting on purpose. “You don't... look so good.” There's a certain strain to her, and the start of a nervous glow in her skin.

“Yes,” she agrees. “Could I speak with you?” Though not an odd request, it has an odd smell. Terezi twists her mouth– what is this about?

Before she can answer, Rose emerges from the doors behind them. Terezi smells their bright orange pajamas before they come around at her left, walking to their matesprit with hands reaching to take Kanaya's arms by the wrist. Rose's smile has a sly warmth, detectable in the air with a taste like peach pastry. “I think that went rather well, don't you?”

Kanaya's expression falls dour at the joke, but she accepts a kiss of consolation on her cheek. Terezi has their combined attention a moment later, when they turn to face her.

Kanaya starts. “I was about to-”

“Solicit my advice, I think.” Terezi finishes. She shrugs to begin her answer. “Sure. My house isn't far. We can go there.”

Kanaya nods in simple agreement. Rose lets the two of them go with a knowing smirk and an entirely harmless waggle of their eyebrows. “We'll talk later,” they explain with a lingering touch to Maryam's forearm. That's a _'tell me how it goes!'_ if she's ever heard one, Terezi thinks. So she must be in for something.

While Rose leaves towards the northern road, the two of them fall into step side-by-side, and wind through the clustered houses of the town's southern epicenter.

The humans, most of them, live in a collective establishment a short walk the storage hive itself. It's only Dirk, Jane, Jake and Roxy that live separately, if Rose's cottage in the woods is not counted. But even Dirk and Roxy share their buildings with a troll or two; most people live in pairs with roommates, aligned either by hobby, hemotype or the looping genetics of ectobiology. John, Jade and Dave's house was nice enough; she'd been there once to play board games, playfully twisting the rules to John's distress.

Her house is some ways further on to the west, on the outermost ring of the town before the grassy fields give way to forest. She slides her palm down the edge of the front door to the handle, opens it, and stands aside for her guest to enter. Kanaya grabs a few inches of her skirt to step up into the walkway, and even bothers to rub her shoes on the welcome mat. Suddenly conscious of the dirt she's tracked into her own hive, Terezi eases off her shoes here by the block portal, and abandons her cane against the foyer wall.

They get settled quickly enough. She makes tea, but first she has to bother scrubbing out the kettle and actually washing a few mugs, getting a little tense at the delay. Being back in her living block settles the dream once more in her memory, and she frowns while rubbing her thumb into a stubborn spot of grime.

When she returns, Kanaya seems perfectly sedated there on the couch, and graciously takes a full cup when offered.

“Thanks,” She says, settling it on her lap in both hands. Terezi swigs down a scalding gulp, collapsing into the padded chair opposite and propping one bare foot over her knee. _So, what's up?_

She doesn't really have to ask out loud for Kanaya to begin. The troll in front of her takes a restrained sip of the tea, and looks across the clutter of her living block table, trying to spy an empty place to put down her mug. Terezi realizes _oh my god, she's looking for a coaster_ , and tries not to _snrk_ as Kanaya takes a folded handkerchief out of her skirt pocket to put below the cup, when she doesn't find one.

Kanaya folds her thick arms in front of her chest, and lowers into a thoughtful glower.

“It's about my project. And, indirectly, about Gamzee.” She pauses, looking up towards Terezi with uncertainty. “Will that be alright?”

 _You don't even know the start of it,_ she thinks. It's nice to be ahead, for a change, so she nods. What _has_ been going on, all this time?

Kanaya leans forward, settling elbows on her lap and wringing her hands. “Karkat expressly forbid further pursuit of this, um... reproductive strategy. Before we've managed a generation bridge for the iron-two hemotype, let alone confirmed the method's viability with hatched grubs.” A thin frown settles on her face, and she lifts a palm to scrub up against her temple. “So, I've failed.”

Her tone is unsettling. Terezi takes a serious approach, sitting up from the give of the cushioned chair and lowering her mug. “The consequences being?”

“Poor genetic health for the species. Extremely poor. At least three hemotypes disappear completely without that gene in a viable descendent.” Kanaya says. There's a look to her, strained and uneasy, and though the words don't taste like disaster, the troll in front of her absolutely _reeks_ of preemptive grief. “It could take centuries to recover, if that's even possible. I just– to think, all we did to rescue our species from prejudice and tyranny, to fail to secure the futures of the lower castes _now_.”

It's an interesting thought. As tempting as it would be to consider the slate wiped clean and matters of hue arbitrary, maybe that was naive. It was probably as important as she was saying, to lay a certain groundwork, and give their hypothetical descendents the best chance at a better world. The prospect of a truly new universe, once immediate, was daunting.

All the same, she narrows her blind eyes. Something is off. “...But you're not here about generation bridges.”

“No,” she answers, caught in her deflection. “I'm not.”

Terezi settles back. _Okay, now it's real._ “You're here about _you_. Right?”

Kanaya hesitates on her answer, rubbing fingers over her knuckles. When the answer finally comes, it's in a chilling, flowing calm. “...Karkat terminated the project on the grounds that the suffering inflicted on Gamzee was inexcusable, even via consent. Suffering inflicted by our negligence.”

“Oh.” There are two thoughts in her mind, immediately. _How bad was it,_ followed shortly by _no, Pyrope, that's definitely not a rabbit hole you need to go down._

Kanaya nods, as if to say _Oh, indeed_. Terezi chews on the idea a moment. So, what's bothering her? She supposes she'll know quickly.

She guesses right. Kanaya gradually comes to her own admissions without prompting. “I... and, I believe Karkat mirrors the assumption, that it may not have been consent without a certain kind of duress, perceived or otherwise.” Her face is a rigid calm over a quiet horror, and Terezi feels a lurch of pity in her thoracic effusion cavities. _You feel guilty!_ “He said it would have been different, if someone else had offered. That we would have made sure it was different. And I keep thinking he might have been right.”

 _Oh, Maryam._ But it's so like her, all the same. She spends just enough time making a face that Kanaya notices, and straightens back up to repeat her inquiry. “Are you quite sure you're alright talking about this?”

She nods. “I'm absolutely sure, Kanaya. You've got no idea _how_ sure.”

Catching on, Kanaya's eyebrows lower into a look of serious suspicion. “Care to clue me in?”

 _Busted._ Well, she couldn't stay ahead for too long– Maryam might not be as mentally agile, but she was hardly flappable. More freight train than grasshopper. Terezi takes a dramatic sip from her mug, then lowers it down to rest on one bouncing knee. “I've been investigating the possibility of Gamzee's innocence. Speaking of duress, I mean.” She hides her own nervousness in another swig as Kanaya stares on in bewilderment. “Through a possible number of will-dominating elements, either independently or all at once. You know. I checked the symptoms and everything, went over our records. It's... definitely plausible. Enough to look into.” Is she _babbling_?

Kanaya's eyes remain narrowed into fuzzy little yellow slivers. “Innocent of how much?”

“Yet to be determined.”

“Determined _how_?”

She hides her mouth underneath her tilted mug, and sinks into her chair. “...Working on it.”

Kanaya's exasperation can be felt, if not seen. But it's polite, even as her back straightens, and her palms settle against either hip. “It can't be proven. If you pursue this seriously, it provides mind control as a criminal excuse.”

She scowls behind her beverage, but decides to lower it. This is serious. “If I don't, it just shows that mind control is beyond the reach of justice. Kanaya, you don't understand. It never _happened_ to you.”

That settles her. Her gaze softens, as if she's is making some deep-running interpretation of Terezi's motives on her own, and the idea that Maryam might get there faster makes her tense. _This is mine, Maryam, please just let me have it._

“I'm just saying,” Kanaya begins, “That it will set legal precedent for the entire commune.”

She snorts. “Commune? Kanaya, there's twelve of us.”

“Twenty,” She corrects coldly. “I'm just... warning you. Gently. This could become political.”

“It's _already_ political.” _What do you think this conversation is?_ Vriska is circling, anyway. She has a time limit to operate under. Let the people a century away deal with their own problems.

That gets her on another thought, and she straightens indignantly. “Hey, how did we get on this subject, anyway? We were talking about eggs!”

That gets her back in line. Kanaya softens, eases back against the couch. _That's right, it's your turn, so behave yourself._ Suddenly she thinks being intimidated by her all of those sweeps ago was silly; towering and clinical as Kanaya could be, Terezi could finally see the uncertainty wound tight under that iron resolve. “...Something happened to Gamzee in the caverns. Something I could have prevented, if I'd known to. Something I wish I had.” She stops, with a sigh, and settles a palm to brace against her hornbed. She looks _tired_. Strained, at the very least. Terezi lets that admission stew in the air.

Kanaya stares into some distant point in the floor, before she speaks again. “Sometimes I worry the humans are our moral betters.”

She frowns, critical. “Don't _we_ get to decide that?”

Kanaya's eyes flit back up with a new clarity, and with a resounding breath, a bit of the tension in her seems to wind away. “You're right. I've made my apologies. I just...”

“Oh my god, you big goof.” She resists the urge to grin. “You're suffering _hindsight_ , Maryam. I hate to break it to you, but it's pretty normal.” She thinks, suddenly, of Vriska. “Well, for most of us...”

Uncomfortable and surly, Kanaya shifts in her chair and hides her mouth under a curled hand. The grin breaks out in force, now, and she drops her coasterless mug down on top of a stack of papers in order to brace both palms on her knees. “Guess what. You're as fucked up as the rest of us! And you know what?” She waits for the subtle flicker of Kanaya's gaze settling on her, before she continues. “You have to go on anyway! Join the club.” _I'm head over heels for you anyway, you blood-sucking disaster._

A smile twitches there under the shield of Kanaya's hand, and brief as it was, it was there, and that's all Terezi needs to be beaming. It's good to have advice to dole out, for once.

Kanaya drops her hand for her final admission. “Moral confusion is not a feeling I enjoy.” Before Terezi can even ask, _What's so confusing about it?_ Maryam continues. “So, if you are right about Gamzee– what then?”

She lets her mouth curl up into a distasteful twist. “Don't expect me to know, okay? I'm going to figure it out as I go along. For me. Nobody else.” She thinks that should make it perfectly clear where politics can shove it, if needed be. And, since Maryam had done her own divulging, it was only fair to reciprocate with due transparency. “...I have to be sure this time, Kanaya. Do you understand?”

If she hadn't before, she does now. A sapient glimmer comes over her yellow eyes. “I think I do.”

“Good. Because I'm not explaining myself to anybody.” _Not more than that, anyway_. Terezi falls back into the chair in relief. “So, what about _your_ problems?”

Kanaya shakes her head. But she looks pleased, so that's enough to set Terezi's bloodpusher athump. “No, it's fine. I'll... find some way, with the caverns. Think of other options. You've given me some perspective.” She straightens her skirt, picks her mug back up off the table. “I think I might ask Rose– she's likely to be interested in your theory, by the way. You should come to dinner tomorrow.”

The thought of another night in their company nearly makes her pan glow. “Again?”

Kanaya nods, swallowing her mouthful of tea. “My place this time.”

 _Yes yes yes!_ “Sure, why not? I'll see you there.”

With their affairs settled, Kanaya lifts from her seat, and Terezi goes to get the door. Kanaya hangs in the entryway as she leaves, and turns to say goodbye. She expects a curt address or maybe a sterile hug, but instead, Kanaya lowers her staggering height down to brush lips on Terezi's forehead, and a cool, undead palm paps along her cheek. Quite instantly, she's as dumb as moss, and forgetting to breathe makes the world go dim.

“Thank you,” Kanaya says, out of the blackness. Her voice is a sweet and earnest melody, like flowers and honey, and her breath is warm from the tea. “I'll see you later.”

“Yeah,” Terezi says foggily, nearly swaying. A smile she doesn't see hums in her pan all the same, and Kanaya withdraws, her footsteps pattering off into the night.

She stands there for a while, feeling the breeze of the cool evening pooling into her home. Then she closes her door, floats into her respiteblock, and collapses onto her slab in giddy delight. The adventures of _Cordelia Naismith_ await her in one of Rose's loaned novels, with a clear sheet of laminate to lay over the pages and guard them from the licks of her tongue. The residual euphoria lingers through her vicarious adventures on planets filled with vampire jellyfish and fuzzy crabs, and even further, till it still buzzes in her mind as she lays down to sleep.


	17. Heaven's Yoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter specifically; allusions, vague as they may be, to childhood trauma (as discussed via two mutually supportive characters.) and alcohol, addiction, etc. Gender Emotions are had, which include oblique references/descriptions to dysphoria, but nothing too intense.
> 
> This fic really does need a tag/summary/etc overhaul, but more than that it needs me to write the last 30k words or so, and then it can finally be done. Then it can be done better, because as I think I mentioned before I'm totally in the "forest, what forest, all I see are trees" stage. But I hope they're nice trees, at least. Enjoy these trees.

Morning finds Gamzee curled up on the couch, with the air of the room still warm from the embers dying in the hearth, and a soreness at home in their middle. In their sleep, the pain had reached down into their legs and up their spine, but it still wasn't as bad as the day before-- or the day before that. Soon it'll only be something that bites and stings when they stretch. Even now it's dull and heavy more than it is excruciating, easing out into sweats and trembling fatigue, making its way through their nerves and up out the borders of their pan, fading away.

They roll to their back, even as gravity resists. For as long as they'd slept, they still feel tired. Tired, tired, tired, so much it was almost frightening. At least that spark in their pan hadn't gone out or tumbled over, fighting back their worst thoughts and greatest exhaustion with its little mantra of _live, live, live_.

 _Workin on it,_ they mutter back, shifting up onto their palms. One of the blankets is easy enough to bundle around their shoulders, keeping them warm as they go to check on the eggs.

A few days had turned the things from compact little globes to swollen circles full of life, each of them resting in their cradles. The flexible shells stretch thin now, more grub than egg, making it clear to see the tiny motherfuckers coiled inside. They're not just pale lumpy tubes, now; their colors reach halfway up their bodies. Their tiny carapaced feet are going dark. Hints of yellow creep under the nubs of their developing horns, and sometimes they even twitch. It wasn't possible anymore to pretend these were anything but trolls, small ones, all wrapped up but not for much longer.

Gamzee hovers a hand by one carefully, tidying the bedding against it. The shell still glitters from a recent misting, so Karkat must have taken care of them just a moment ago. They don't have a good reason to linger here, looking on at it. They do, all the same, free to wonder on about it in the quiet.

While they stand there comparing grubs to aches, the front door cracks open and Karkat lumbers up the step into the hive. He stops to peel out of his dirty sweater and take off each shoe, clapping them against the door frame to shake off the dirt. Grass stains cover his pants from knee to ankle, and his face is flushed and red, expression screwed down into that strain that's about to be acquiescent exhaustion.

Before they can ask, Karkat spots them across the room and deflates, setting down the shoes and closing the door. In a minute, he's crossing the room and bringing warm palms up onto their shoulders.

“Hey,” he starts. There's an intensity to him, energy present even now, crackling under the limits of that bright thinkpan. “How are you feeling? I mean-- did you sleep well?”

Gamzee blinks. They guess so, they just have to find the words in the fuzz of their pan. “Yeah, brother. Just the aches.”

“Great,” he says, before catching himself. “I mean, not great. Shit, it's not keeping you up, is it?”

 _A little._ “Uh. It ain't nothing.”

They can tell from the look on his face that he doesn't buy it. He spends a while calculating, palms braced on their shoulders, before he gets his idea. “Want another back rub?”

They try not to tense up in nervousness, because they _do_ , really. The last one was what had lulled them to unconsciousness in the first place, and another might set the pain back into a dull roar, maybe enough to go back to sleep. “...Yeah, brother.”

“Alright. Just let me clean up first.”

In a minute, they're back on the couch, with Karkat sitting at their hips and his warm hands nice and firm, finding the right amount of pressure after a few false starts. A purr comes up out of their thorax without asking, going deep and loud before long. They're only a little scared to purr, just like Karkat is only a little obsessively focused on the noise, rubbing careful to try and keep it going.

They try to smile for him, all the same. “Why're you lookin to be like you and the flowerbed got might familiar while I was snoozing?”

Karkat initially huffs, but the little spasm cools quickly. “Cause that's what I did. Just. Weeding, I don't know. Thought I'd check the leaves for bugs.”

“You did that yesterday, brother.”

“I've done _everything_ around here. I even greased that squeaky window.” He sighs, staring forward while he rubs, looking like even he knows why he's here blustering. Gamzee goes on their side to watch him, and he takes the message, withdrawing himself and his eager hands. The hang of his t-shirt leaves his full gray arms visible, the box of his shoulders and size of his frame, bound rumblespheres a slight bulge over his ribs. He looks bigger, without that puffy thing he wears to cover him up. “Sorry, ugh. I know. Listen, I shouldn't ask more than once, so I promise I won't again. Do you want to take some of the pain medication? I'll... you know, I'll be here.”

They _do_ feel a scary lurch in them, but it doesn't stay any longer than Karkat's indignation at being accused of over-gardening. They stare dumb through the space in their pan where the fear used to be. _Huh._

Karkat only sees their worry. “Yeah, I know,” he consoles them, bowing his head. “It'll be okay. I'll be here to make sure, alright? And I really think you could handle it. But if you don't want to, that's fair. It's up to you.”

Trusting the motherfucker he's most pale for comes easy enough, for once. “Maybe I can be trying it.”

Karkat nods, sits dumbfounded for more than a moment, and flees to go retrieve the pill and a cup of water. By the time it's in their hand, Gamzee manages to feel only a little nervous at the tiny white thing in their gray palm. They look to Karkat, almost for approval, getting only an attentive stare.

Finally they go _fuck it, this ain't gonna be the worst thing what's happened_ , and pop it down with a swig of the water. It's done. They don't feel different-- probably wouldn't, right away, anyway. Karkat doesn't sigh outright in relief, but something in them feels piteous and when he comes close, Gamzee goes down on his lap curled cozily about the pain. Karkat sits under them, his warm, full belly to their back, a purr vibrating somewhere deep in his padded thorax.

They close their eyes, letting themselves go weary and pale, with Karkat's thick fingers going gently through their hair. This was _nice_. “...How long to be kicking itself in, motherfucker?”

“Maybe half an hour? Might be longer, for you.” Karkat gives them a pat on the shoulder, all the same, and cautiously reaches lower to rub at their stomach. They twist under the affection to disguise a wary flinch, but eventually decide it's fine, arcing to make room for his hand. He's very careful, almost like he's scared of breaking something. _Oh, motherfucker, the things you ain't to know_.

“Will you stay here?” They mutter.

“Yeah, I can stay.” He rubs their belly a little firmer, and at first it's wince-worthy, but getting in that deep at the ache makes it less, and soon between that and the little thing they'd swallowed they start to feel... better. To their relief, it's decidedly not like sopor.

It takes the pain, but leaves the weariness, so once they can be limp without having to writhe or pull tight against aches, they go lax along their moirail's lap like overdone pasta. Karkat's wandering hands draw out another purr before long, and they find themselves nestled as much down into the place they've got on him as they can.

Somewhere warm. Safe. Under a hand that only eases through their hair, or drags knuckles down over their shoulder. Not enough pain to keep them awake. They're too damn _tired_ to be really scared, or really ashamed.

Instead, it's Karkat's muttering that keeps them aware. “Hey,” he starts.

They blink into a weary sort of coherence. “Yeah?”

“I'm just...” He stops, puffs up in a breath Gamzee can feel against their back. “I'm trying to do better.” That's an odd thing to say out of the blue, but a hand burrows back down into their hair and rubs sweetly at their scalp, the base of their horns, so they just listen through a throaty purr. “Don't think I don't know Kanaya has me here to cool the fuck off, you know? I do know.”

They grin, quietly, and pap at his knee. “You're coolin, brother.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He gently scratches at a horn, in thanks. “I've got something to say, if that's alright?”

It really is. “Go on ahead, motherfucker.”

“...You've been through so much. I took that it was hard for you personally, like I fucking always do. I'm like a black hole, not even light can escape the pull of my insecurities.” His warm hand rubs over their shoulder and down their bicep, before smoothing back into their waist, and Gamzee's eyes close so it's just his voice in the dark. “I'm an insecure jerk. Who forgets he's not a six-sweep aberrant wiggler that can just keep wallowing in in his own emotional detritus. It's seriously time to grow up, you know? Accept I have to start being accountable for my own shit.”

They purr under his hand, letting that be their response. Speaking is just so hard, now, even if the words put a certain lightness in them. But Karkat stays quiet and listens for a few syllables of rattling, smoothing palm over their ribs as an answer. “Okay, spiel over. Thanks for the second chance, okay? I figure if I can just cool my fucking shit for a minute, then... I can actually take care of you.”

_Take care of you. Look out for you._

Gamzee's beatpump gives an inexplicable lurch, and they reach up for Karkat's hand, taking it in theirs. He lets them, until they bring it down and close it in their own fingers against their chest. Their throat hurts, their pan wandering away from what he'd said. _You ain't supposed to have this. It was motherfucking promised at you how you never would._

But all they can do is keep themselves there under the drape of Karkat's arm, and hold still, and try to forget. _It's over._ They don't have what it takes to answer him, but he seems to be alright, going back to humming little shooshes and working himself down into pacification, just from a moirail on his lap, purring for him, holding him down so he ain't to float away. They can rest easy.

Karkat gives a spontaneous groan, shifting under their head. “Shit. You haven't eaten, I need to make you something.”

“We just got comfy, brother.”

He smiles, for a second, before he goes back to surly in embarrassment. Gamzee knows it's only him trying to keep himself solid, somewhere safe to land on. “We'll get back to that, alright? Promise. Food, then pale.”

“If you're promising me.”

–

He keeps that promise. They finish breakfast and make their way back up the stairs to the slab, where it's all soft bodies and closeness and wary kissing, done slow and careful enough that it isn't frightening. It's just getting used to closeness, learning the shit all over again. It is like being six a second time, but with a world and sunlight outside, instead of inky blackness full of things that want to chew up your mind and spit it back out. They shudder, banishing the thought. Scared as they are, it's worse to not try at all, and before long Gamzee knows the feeling in their head is pacification and the dull thrum in their pan, and the painlessness of their body, will quickly put them to sleep.

When they wake back up, the slab is empty again. They hardly feel refreshed, but there's time for that. Instead they slowly uncurl, testing the feelings in their heavy body. Everything's still where they left it, except Karkat.

Well, why not seek _him_ out, for a change?

Once down the stairs, they can see the top of two heads, blonde and black, out the window of the kitchen. Rose and Karkat, talking. They pause on the stairs. Muted conversation as it is, Gamzee can tell from the duck of Karkat's head and the twist of his shoulders that something doesn't quite go down easy. It could be something to worry about if their body wasn't begging them to be horizontal, and their mind weren't already wrung out like a sponge by pale, through pain or painlessness. Whatever it could be, their imagination has decided to check out, and has no comment at all to be given.

So they go down to the bottom and wait, sitting on the last step with a view of the door. It's not long before the two of them are coming back in, and Karkat looks surprised enough to see them, on top of his typical fluster.

“Uh,” he starts. It's pretty obvious what's going on, so he skips any over-explanation. “She... wants to know if you could talk?”

Maybe they aught to say no, just to have the rest of sleepy, warm mid-day to themselves and whatever Karkat wanted to resume. But Rose stands in the doorway looking mighty purposeful, and somehow benevolent on top of that, so there's a feeling in them like they should say yes.

They don't _have_ to say yes. But they do, righting themselves up off the steps. “Alright.”

They don't go without sneaking a touch of lips into Karkat's hair, almost quick enough to be missed, and Karkat goes red before he retreats back into the hive. Rose leads them out into a day turning sunny under that weird blue sky, and stepping out the door feels as much as anything like a boundary crossed. The two of them go slow, minding Gamzee's condition, but they still crumple down quick in the shade of Karkat's oak tree when they get there. This is far enough to be out of earshot of anything.

The view in Karkat's yard shows the road going east and west, and the one that branches out south along the forest border. It's green as anything, out here. Above, below, and in their claws as they take a gentle grip on the grass. It's long and coarse as lusus fur, but somehow lighter. And behind them, the roughness of tree bark pressing through their thin shirt. All very much existing.

For someone that wants to talk, they find Rose is being awful quiet. They finally look up from studying their own feet, considering her quiet stare. If this is some kind of game, it's not nice to play without sharing the rules, they think.

They try something else. “'She' today, sister?”  
  
Rose nods. They allow themselves one single pang of feeling before they talk it back down. Her first words are simple enough; “I just wanted to check in. How are you doing?”

Baffled, they lift a claw up into their hair, scratching idly at the same places Karkat had in the morning. “...fine enough, I guess.” It's all too easy to remember how this had gone last time. _She's just being friendly, motherfucker, you ain't gotta be like this._

But it's hard _not_ to be like this. They don't know what she's here for, and the way she watches them fidget makes the question come out as if all on its own.

“Sorry, sister, but... what the motherfuck is we all to be doing out here under this tree, getting our motherfuckin chum on.” They hesitate on the end of the question. It's not that they can't believe it, it's just easier not to. “...and don't say you're only wanting to hang out with a motherfucker.” _Cause sure as motherfuck we could do that shit inside, where my moirail can see you._

Rose smirks evenly. “Can I not 'hang out' with a motherfucker? Are there rules to proper clown engagement I'm circumventing, here?”

For all they can tell, she's being serious, enough her eyes would light up to be handed a motherfucking pamphlet. “I know that ain't only why you are to be getting yourself sat there, is all.” They realize they've curled up, somehow, and nearly hide under the hand they use to brush through their hair. “Makin a ninja feel his nerves up in the wondering space, and I ain't much wanting to have to wonder on what intentions a homie got for me.” But the idyllic scenery and Rose's patient calm make it better than it could have been. At least.

“Sorry, was it that obvious?” She frowns, dripping in human sympathy, which makes them oddly want to shudder but also to just roll over and let whatever she's getting at be done with. “I guess I'm not very good at this, really. I wanted to talk, maybe about something important. But maybe not right away. It felt like coming on too strong.”

Gamzee rolls their shoulders in half a shrug. “Wanting should be asking or nothing, motherfucker.”

“That's good. Where's it from?”

 _Good?_ They grin. “Card two, chapter six. Lyric seventy.” But that makes them go remembering all the verses they don't have stored up in their pan, which settles them melancholy again. “...What are you wanting to talk on, at?”

“A few things,” she starts. Watching them. Her eyes are so clear, Gamzee could be envious. “Are you feeling okay?”

 _Okay?_ It's hard to be sure. “Yeah.”

“How's Karkat?”

Their stomach flops. _Scaring me half to motherfucking death, so motherfucking close and alive, sister, like he's gonna burn me up and swallow the ashes._ “He's a good motherfucker. Is always in his trying to be. Been keepin himself steady.” _I love him, I love him, I love him, so much I'd let him do it._ “He's my moirail.”

She chews on their answer. They can't feel her pan moving under its own surface like they can with the other trolls, but seeing her think behind her eyes is almost as easy. “Is there anything you can't talk to him about?”

 _Motherfuck_ , how does she know? It won't be fair, trying to outdo her. They may have all the cards she doesn't, but what does that matter? She can probably see the lines around the hole, triangulate its shape out anyway. Seers. _Humans_.

They decide right then that if they have to talk to anybody about it, ever, it might... _might_ be her. Which doesn't mean it has to be now, let alone ever. But there's no harm in imagining letting form come to all this fake unreal shit, this stuff that can't exist anywhere but in their pan, and barely holds itself together even then. So the question comes out a little warbling, a little by accident.

“You won't... _tell_ nobody, will you?”

She lifts a hand, crossing a pointed twitchdigit over her thorax panel. The way they stare on clueless prompts her to explain; “Cross my heart and hope to die. Ancient human pledge of secrecy. Very serious.”

They give a little scoff, almost a honk, in good nature. That's probably a made up thing, but they aren't sure they can imagine her lying. And if she is... so what? So _what_? They promised themselves nearly a perigee ago they were done handing in their own punishment. That by now, somebody else would have to do it to them, instead. When they dig down into themselves looking for that spark, they find it's still true. They hadn't given up on it all this time, so why now?

“So you're just gonna motherfucking listen? That's all?”

She nods. “That's how it works on earth. By which I mean, yes. Pinky promise. Also very serious.” She sticks out her smallest grabbing prong, and experimentally they mirror the gesture. She tangles it with theirs and curls it shut around their own; they do the same, watching that clawless brown all coiled against their gray.

“This ain't cheating?”

She gives that sympathetic look, again. “Karkat wants you to be happy. Besides, this is seer business. I think.”

They nod as if it makes sense. But that leaves them without excuses, and now she's just there waiting, and they don't know where to start. So instead thoughts take turns growling at each other in their head, layers of _you can't_ and _fuck these homies askin like they got the right to know, like they even half earned it as you did,_ and what an awful, awful thing it was to earn, anyway.

They want to, without knowing where to start. They keep pushing the silence around in their mouth, feeling sick remembering gags and a tongue as still as iron, and end up folding over their curled knees in defeat. Rose watches.

 _Just give up already,_ they want to say. But not even that comes out.

Instead, Rose's voice eventually comes over the silence.

“You know. When I was thirteen, I looked into a crystal ball.” Her voice is oddly smooth, like she's telling a fairy tale. They look up. “When I... woke up, my mother was dead.”

Their stomach drops. They know, they remember. It's even their fault. They wonder if she knows, and she must, but she looks at them like she knows more than even that. Okay, so maybe they don't have all the cards to themselves. The same person had sent them tumbling down, after all.

They look away from her, back down at their knees, taking clawed handfuls of their skirt. “Did you know what it was going to motherfucking have done at you, sister?”

She shakes her head. “No. Not really.”

“Would you have, motherfucker, all the same?”

That gives her a moment's pause. In the end, she shrugs. “It's possible. I took their power because I thought I needed it. In the end, I failed anyway. He only knew exactly what to ask that I couldn't refuse.”

That hurts, deep and too much, and they rub a palm up to hold the water in their eyes. “...What was it like?”

“Cold. Perhaps a mistake.” She watches on, very calm, not at all responding to the crying that's threatening in them with anything more than that level, warm stare. “Is that what happened to you?”

 _No_ surges up like vomit, just short of actually being said, because they don't know that it's true. Both of their hands come up now, sweeping through their hair and bracing to each temple. They sigh out, heavy, around shaking breath. Rose waits, until the next question in their heart is out in their mouth. Why are they doing this? Why doesn't it feel right to stop?

Their voice comes out wavering, sounding small. “...Could you know what was you and what was them, sister?” _Do you know now_?

“Perhaps.” She makes a face like it does take some thought, holding a lip beneath her teeth. “I could feel their intentions, their will. It was convincing. Even up until my death.” She shakes her head. “There was a sense of myself, and my new self with them. But until that moment it ended, we were closely aligned. I would call it a moment of parallel intentions, more than anything. Synchronicity, even.”

“It ain't like that.” They sputter it out. It's their very first sentence of truth, and it's an argument; _It ain't like that._ She just watches, not arguing back just yet, and so they carry on like the words were in there the whole time. “It's like... blood, all in the ocean of the shit, sister. Spreading you out so thin. To be finding an edge to pull away from ain't a thing to be motherfucking done.” It's surreal to feel it out of their lips, but once they're out, they can't be taken back. So more spill away, fighting a way through from the sick feeling in their stomach, summoned out of their chest like ghosts. “Mixed all of me all up with all of him, and wasn't to leave _nothing_. Ain't a refuge, not even on the inside of a motherfucker. Specially not there. Ain't was that a place no more. By the time I wanted--” They stagger on the word, come to a stop, shivering and nauseated. “Too late. Nowhere to motherfucking go. Nothing I could be doing.”

Rose just listens, like she promised. They think of Karkat, there in the hive, of these things he can't know. Didn't want to know before, and couldn't possibly understand now. How could anyone? When they can't even call it by name...

She just watches, though. And though their face is warm and wet, their makeup smearing from the tears, words hiccup out in their ragged breathing in remembering what she'd said. “For a motherfucking second, I thought it was going to be the thing what was gonna up and motherfucking save me.” She asked, dammit, so it should be okay, but there's a war in their thorax they have to rip every word from, thinking _live, live, live._ “Just a motherfuckin second, was all he was to need.”

They keep waiting for their throat to close up, paralyzed like in a bad dream. It doesn't, and though they have to breathe, they can keep going, and nothing stops them. But the only things they can say are angry, now. “If I ain't never-- was on that shit. If I'd never.” They trail off, eyes tracing the grass. “Senseless motherfuckin grub I was. All moterfuckin changed around me. Couldn't bear-- needed. Something. There it motherfucking was. Waiting. _Stupid_.”

“You were young and scared,” she says. Like she knows.

She can't know. She can't know the sweeps they went through, the screams silenced in their own soul, to have a body like iron clamped around you, lungs that won't even choke for air, a body that won't die. So they settle her with a look that's got all their anger, like they even asked for her forgiveness. It wasn't hers to give.

It doesn't phase her. She talks, softly, and the words cut all of that rage off like she's a wet rag and they're a candle. “When I was a kid, something bad happened.”

They stop, listening. Their heart goes still. “...Real bad?”

“Really, really bad.” She says, almost like it's an inside joke. Real dark shit, indeed. They unfold warily from their hunch, rubbing their eyes clear. “And I thought, for some reason, that my mother might stop drinking after. She didn't, of course.” Her face settles like it has a memory of that hurt behind it, but whole all the same. They study her, cautious; she seems okay. “It hurt, that I had nothing to count on. Well, besides a very expensive therapist.”

They don't know what to say, any more than they know why they're being told. Not until they follow themselves down to the base of the spiral. Feeling the holes they'd tried to fill all this time, gaping as ever. _Sopor or God or nothin, motherfucker, holes are still holes._ And she's still listening like there's something to be said. _  
_

They might as well tell her everything.

“I was three- four, or something. Seadwellers came up out of the ocean.” They stare far, far away from themselves, towards the hills, wishing they could crawl out of this body and leave it somewhere. “Dad wasn't there. Showed up enough in time to be killing em, but not stopping them... and I remember their blood on the beach, and crying into his mane and shit.” They shut their eyes, tilt their head back until their horns meet oak. “And he got himself leaving the next day all the motherfucking same.”

She knew. She at least had an inkling. But her moments stretch on into years for them, trailing on and on and burrowing down into their bones, too far to be dug out. But bad was bad was bad, and though it leaves everything in them hollowed and the world a strange, shimmering mirage around their ghost, at least somebody sees it. At least somebody sees. At the very least, it's not strange, forbidden part of the world that they have to carry alone. But that's almost tragic, too.

She's got her own arms about her knees now, too, looking over her bright orange capris. “Do you think you could tell Karkat, someday?”

They shake their head in panic. _No, no, no._ “I been alone so long they're strangers to me again, motherfucker. I ain't to know them...” That's only the start of it. Even thinking of Tavros' easy companionship and Karkat's affection is sour, now. “They ain't to know me. How can there ever be a soul to know me? There ain't a soul left to be known. I ain't to know the start of my own motherfucking self.”

They still waver around the words, trying to scrub their face dry as she listens. “It's all gone, now, motherfucker. Ripped outta me same how it was put in.” They can't say the word, but somehow she'll know, somehow she _knows,_ even as they babble. “And I was to be anything what I was made and got nothin left for it. Nothin to motherfucking be or to know is myself. Nothin worth keeping, through all the shit.”

She nods, across the gap. They feel sorry, all at once. Sorry for what they heard about her-- sorry for what had happened, whatever bad it had been, however much. Half to comfort themselves and half out of the mourning that she, that anyone, had ever had to know those same terrors or even a shadow of them, they lay out their hand palm-up on the grass. It comes to them all the sudden how alone they weren't, how they weren't the only one-- Jade, Jane, even _Tavros--_ as Rose takes their hand.

It was just so easy to believe, that out of everyone, they somehow came out the one who had to suffer in the dark, had to, had to, somehow for the goodness of everything. But now...

Eventually Rose withdraws her hand, and Gamzee does the same. The yard is as serene as when they'd started, and the blue sky was too big to darken at all, even with the depth of their tragedies. Life was going on, sunny and green. _The motherfucking nerve_.

They scrub away the last of their tears, finding themselves oddly stable, after everything. But their chest aches with one last question.

“What about me on my motherfuckin own lonesome, sister. Who does that motherfucker get to be?”

Rose holds, for a moment. She looks at them a long time, like she's thinking. But she does have an answer to give, the dappled light coming through the oak branches and swaying over her brown skin and bright hair. “I think you get to decide that.”

 _Fair e-nough, motherfucker._ They stand up, and she follows.

–

Rose leaves them at the door without an explicit goodbye or an attempt at physical contact; neither were needed, really. Gamzee was at least a little sure this wasn't the last time they would talk, but found themselves too drained to care. Rose, at least, was easy to talk to, like she picked up on everything, especially when the moment came that there was nothing left to say.

When they get inside, Karkat is waiting backwards on one of the chairs, chin resting on his arms. He scrambles to his feet when he sees them, coming up to reach towards their smudged face.

“Gamzee...” He thinks better not a second too soon, hovering his hands by their arms, instead. “Are you okay? What happened?”

They need him. They need _something_ to catch them, right now, so they come close and let themselves weigh down into the embrace that comes around them, clinging gently to Karkat's torso. Warm arms are around their back in a second, holding them tightly.

They don't cry. It's not quite that kind of a thing. But they do nuzzle down a damp cheek against his shoulder, leaving a faint smear. _Ugh._

Karkat stays quiet, rubbing a hand up and down their spine. They stand here for as long as they can think makes any sense, before pulling away to look down at his expectant face. He's nearly longing, how he looks at them, so full of pity Gamzee could think there was some other motherfucker behind them it was meant for. If they didn't know better.

 _You get to decide._ And that sure as anything digs something up that won't go back down, and so they grip into his shirt a little tighter, combating the fear working in their guts. “Karkat, can we talk?”

“Sure. Yeah. You can talk to me about anything, Gamzee, you know that?” He smooths palms up them, clearly on edge, ready for action as anything. But they trust him, for this. “...What's this about?”

 _Shit._ Well, it's real. But standing here in the middle of the block doesn't feel right, not when they could be put down somewhere, insulated by more than just air and their own skin. “Can we get on the slab for it, brother?”

He nods, focused. “Sure. Hold on.”

And that's where they go.

Karkat has the bed transformed into a veritable burrow of the hive's available pillows and blankets before long, a comfortable semicircle of saccharine delight set up against the wall side of the slab. This will be their first real pile in sweeps, Gamzee realizes. That sure as hell isn't helping to lower the stakes.

With everything fluffed and primed, it does look pretty inviting. They ease themselves to their knees on the slab, falling down into the softness of the thing with a preemptive exhaustion. Karkat follows, mirroring their position and forming a nice crab barrier between them and the rest of the world. His eyes are red enough in the iris now they could hardly still be called gray, and they trace along Gamzee's face searching for clues.

Gamzee starts with a _shhhh_ , papping him gently. He's momentarily indignant, then self-aware, and closes those red eyes in a sigh.

“Sorry. I'm chill, promise.” When he opens them again, they're focused, this time. There's energy, but it's purposeful, like hot iron. They nearly shiver at the sight.

They swallow around the words for a few moments, feeling their pump biscuit hammer up in them. It's too many moments already that they hesitate, but finally the noises make their way out. _You said all kinds of motherfucking things today, you can say this. You get to decide.  
_

“...I ain't a boy.”

Karkat's cool iron deflates, his sigh audible. “That's _all_?” They must look as unimpressed as they feel, because he lights back up in recognition in a moment. “I mean. Oh my god, I'm sorry. No, this is important.” Soon he's put himself back together, and he places a steadying hand on their shoulder, his face fixed with an apologetic frown. “Is there... something else, that you know you are?” He doesn't say it out loud, exactly, but Gamzee knows the question is, _maybe a girl?_

 _Maybe a girl..._ “Girl is to be more in the rightness than most other things.” That's a non-answer as any they've given, but already their pan seems to be leaking words out the seams, and they don't know how many left they're going to have to speak with. Not with a convenient pile to collapse on and sleep the immediate exhaustion and terror off for a week. This was the first real time to be looking back at themselves, the very first time. No sopor, no god. “...Maybe there's being more to it than that.”

“Hey, that's okay. This is your call.” Karkat rests a careful hand on their waist, and between him and the pile and the wall, there's a nice little corner of the world to start filling up with the truth. Whatever it is that was. “Do you want me to stop calling you 'him', then?”

 _Breathe, in, out._ “Yeah, brother.” That's all they can manage. The worst of this was over, anyway. The tension wasn't so much gone as winding out, and after a day like this, sleeping for a week kept sounding better and better...

“Gotcha.” Karkat seems to notice, and his voice softens while his palm rubs gently along their side. Gamzee lets an uneasy rattle go through their chest, letting everything about the past few hours catch up to them. _If I ain't dreaming, this is wonderful. Scary as hell. But wonderful._ “Is she, or they better? Something else?”

They swallow around not knowing for sure. “They.”

Karkat nods, looking thoughtful. “Should I tell the others?”

“ _No_.” It comes out like somebody else said it, so clear and quick. But they're still tired and nerves and tired from having nerves, so they don't lift up from the bed to speak any louder. “They ain't gotta be a part of this, motherfucker.... not yet.” and, as an afterthought... “Maybe Rose.” _Ain't like I talk to much anybody else._

Karkat just comes a little closer, making a nice spot for them to tilt their head and nuzzle to his collar. They take the invitation, feeling his warm hand go from their waist to their back, rubbing consolingly, and soon they're all nestled down into a warm circle of crab affection. A bewildered purr comes out of the surreal feelings in them, a staggering peace of mind with the pressure let off. “If you're scared of what people might say, I'm more than willing to tell any of them to fuck off, as often as you want. As many times as it takes. I'll have them scrub out both of the kilns. For a month.” Karkat sounds serious, way up there through the clouds of their sudden exhaustion. “If we run out of kilns, I'll build more. I'm serious.”

They could laugh, but they're not feeling much like laughing. The last thing they need is for Karkat to escalate any ill will, and they know he means what he says. “...I just need this to be mine, brother. For a motherfuckin bit. I ain't ready for it to be anybody else's yet.” They worry claws down into one of the blankets, closing their eyes, feeling the very edges of the pain medication starting to fade away.

“So much been taken from me, brother.” They mutter it, quiet, careful, careful. So tiny a truth and so fragile that anybody could break it to pieces, after _so, so long putting it together_. They couldn't take it. Not yet. Or they could, but they're tired of having to take it, to take anything they're given with no end in sight. Is it so much to want this one, tiny thing?

“Nobody's going to do that,” Karkat promises. “I wouldn't let them.”

“You ain't getting it,” they say back. He's not. It's not a thing you can stop someone from doing, or fix with retribution. “Can already hear motherfuckers saying what kind of fucked up shit there must be in itself sitting in my motivations, or my pan, or some other kind of a thing. Don't even have to be there for the hearing of it.”

Karkat frowns. “That would be a decidedly fucked up thing to say to you.”

 _Now_ they've had about enough of it, so they tense up beneath his arm. “You ain't telling me nothing what I don't already know. You ain't a girl, neither.” They huff, adjusting themselves against the pile, and Karkat apologizes with a quiet _pat_ along their hip. “I ain't asking you to do any motherfucking thing of this for me. Just let this be safe, brother.”

“You're right. God, I'm sorry.” He kisses down against their horn, and they shut their eyes, going limp. _Still tired as hell._ “I love you. You are beautiful, and smart, or whatever else anybody says you aren't. I was just too much of a fucking asshole to notice, back then. I notice now, okay?”

It's a little spontaneous... but not unkind. Not unwelcome, either. “Thanks.”

Karkat deflates in relief, nuzzling their hair, and giving a few notes of a mutual purr. They settle in closer to each other, and without Karkat's sweater it's like his warmth is more immediate, right up close, aberrant hueflesh on royal skin and nothing but troll with troll, here on the green world. “...I know it's not the same-- but when my rumblespheres came in I was like, shit, okay, now I've got something _else_ to worry about?” As if able to tell he's wandering subject, he groans at himself, but there's something nice in sharing something with each other, even if it's tangential. “I knew with my mutation I could never get any surgery. And pills and shit were right out too, because how could I be sure how they would work on me? I almost just gave up on it.”

“Must have been hard,” they agree, quietly scratching claws along his skin in traditionally Alternian affection. Somewhere above them, Karkat shakes his head.

“Wasn't that bad. Being hemoanonymous, I mean. Most of the abuses stayed hypothetical for me, thank god. Thank my lusus and my good sense, more like it.” He groans again, lifting his hand to rub against his temple. “Not that I escaped psychologically unscathed, mind you. There was plenty to internalize. Holy shit, like you even have a choice of minding, you've got front row seating to my fucking issues nowadays.”

That makes them smile, in sympathy. They reach up above their head to pap lightly at his cheek. A hand seizes their own, caressing it fondly, and bringing it back down to rest between their chests. Karkat continues.

“...But then I thought, you know, having to keep everything else a secret. I might as well just let myself have this one thing. I still think it was worth it. So, if this is where it starts, this one thing, for you? I'm here. I'm here one hundred fucking percent for you.” And that sets them a little calm, feeling his thumb stroking over the knuckles of their hand. “Sorry, I don't know how that was supposed to help. What I mean to say is 'Yes, dear fucking moirail, I will not go airing your business around like a class act douchecadet.”

Then they do honk out a note of a laugh, and Karkat pulls them close, hugging them. _Wow._ That's not so bad.

Still tired and stressed and melancholy as all shit, but too much taken off of them to be anything but delirious with relief, they curl down cozy into the bed and purr. Karkat stays by them, a solid warm arc, so real, and so close.

“...You know, you could talk to Kanaya about it, if you wanted. She would know about this. A lot more than I do, anyway.”

They make a vague, gruff noise through their nose, right away.

“Yeah, alright. Bad idea. I'm just laying it out there.” Karkat pats them a few times, like saying sorry. “Thank you for telling me. If you ever want me to call you anything different...”

“Yeah, motherfucker. I know.” They nuzzle down onto his shoulder, and he gives them a careful pap along one cheek, which they answer with a sedated purr. “Thanks.” And after that, he's smiling, in ways that prove all motherfucking infectious. Pretty soon there's only that worn down contentment left in them.

“You want to do anything? We could celebrate.”

They shake their head, heaving a sigh. “Just want to _sleep_ , brother.”

“Yeah. Okay.” He pecks against the base of their horn all the same, moving to untangle himself from the nest of pale. “How about I cook dinner for once?”

They nod, spent. And they're quiet until Karkat comes down for another kiss, where they take a gentle handful of his shirt, keeping him there. Just for a moment longer.

“Love you,” they mutter. It's true.

Karkat goes red all over, looking away. But then he puts a third kiss down into their hair, this one as reverent as the rest. “Love you too. Proud of you, okay?” Then he leaves, without any more ceremony than a soothing rub put into their shoulder and one of those lingering gazes, and disappears down the stairs.

They lay there, wrapped in the sheets and breathing in the scent of Karkat and pale, feeling the house around them, and the sounds of their moirail making dinner. They go still as the dead, their mind folding into quiet like a wounded animal ready to rest, and heal. If this is life, it's not bad. It's not bad at all.


End file.
